We are so excited to have digital marketing expert Priscilla McKinney join us for this week’s episode of the Vibrant Leadership Podcast. Priscilla is the CEO of Little Bird Marketing and President of The American Advertising Federation Heartland. She is a popular keynote speaker, blogger, podcast host, industry innovator, and diversity champion. She has won numerous awards and has developed the SOAR System for creating sustainable lead generation. Priscilla runs three different companies concurrently, but Little Bird Marketing is her primary focus and she is here to share her expertise in digital marketing and leadership.
Educated as a Cultural Anthropologist, Priscilla brings a unique approach to her work with business clients. Her guidance to executives and companies flows from two questions: How do we relate to each other? And, what are the agreements we have in our relationships? The answers offer us insights into so many important areas of our business, including:
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The dangers of doing the right actions in the wrong order
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Remembering what has made you successful
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An understanding that collaboration is the new competition
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And so much more
Priscilla understands the tremendous confusion many leaders face in the digital marketing environment. The pressure to do a little bit of this and a little bit of that, without truly knowing what is working and what is not. To be successful in digital, it is essential to know who your ideal client is, plan out the content, remain accountable to the strategy, and collect data in order to replicate what works and stop what doesn’t. Priscilla shares with us her secrets to it all. You won’t want to miss this one!
Mentioned in this episode:
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Twitter: @LittleBirdMomma
Transcript
Priscilla McKinney: Collaboration is the new competition. Don’t go out there just trying to compete. There’s not a scarcity out there. There’s enough for everybody out there.
Voiceover: You’re listening to the Vibrant Leadership Podcast with leadership speaker and consultant Nicole Greer.
Nicole Greer: Welcome to the Vibrant Leadership Podcast. My name is Nicole Greer and I am absolutely delighted that you are here with me today because I have none other than the Little Bird Momma with me today. It’s Priscilla McKinney. She’s the CEO of Little Bird Marketing and she is a popular keynote speaker, a prolific blogger, a podcast host, an industry innovator and a diversity champion, which is so important in today’s day. She is best known for making waves in the digital marketing industry. And Priscilla has been featured on numerous podcasts and the Vibrant Leadership Podcast is absolutely delighted to have her today.
She’s the president of the American Advertising Federation Heartland and has received numerous design, entrepreneurship and industry awards. And along with her expert team, she developed the SOAR system, s o a r. So we’re gonna hear about that today. A proprietary process designed to create sustainable lead generation for busy leaders so they can have the confidence in the growth of their company without losing focus on their responsibilities. Priscilla personifies creativity, entrepreneurship and authentic leadership. I like to call it vibrant leadership. And she is inspiring others to truly carve out their own path of success in her uniquely funny, no nonsense and slightly irreverent way. We’re gonna get along fantastically. Oh, and don’t forget to give her caffeine. So are you caffeinated as of right now, Priscilla?
Priscilla: Usually, I tell people don’t give me caffeine, because I just don’t need it. I’m already ready ready to go. So this is going to be super fun, Nicole.
Nicole: That’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. Well, I am delighted to talk to you because I say I see you as somebody who is just really doing some cool stuff in the world. So first of all, tell us a little bit about your company and how you became the CEO of Llittle Bird Marketing.
Priscilla: Well, how I became the CEO was I decided to pay for everything. So that’s usually how that works.
Nicole: I had the same plan.
Priscilla: Stroking checks, it usually gets you right in. So you know, I was working with another company, and and they ended up selling. And so I had an opportunity really to go out on my own. And I think all entrepreneurs come to that fork in the road, not all of them set out at the very beginning to do that. And that’s my story is that I saw that opportunity. And, as always, and from then on, I just continued to bet on myself. Now I did start a very different company to begin with. And then it was about 12 years ago that then I actually opened what became Little Bird Marketing. So I’ve been I’ve been a serial entrepreneur, currently, I’m running three different companies, Little Bird Marketing, absolutely takes the bulk of my attention.
Nicole: Oh, that’s fantastic. It’s fantastic. So this natural energy that you have, I think that makes us birds of a feather. Don’t miss that. I love it. Yeah, so being a serial entrepreneur requires leadership. You know, the question I asked all my guests first question is, what is your definition of leadership? What’s your perspective? How do you see it?
Priscilla: Well, I think it’s really simple. It just you look behind you. And if people are following, then you’re a leader. So I don’t think it has anything to do with title. I don’t think it has anything to do with personality. I don’t think it has anything to do with long term plans, short term plans, those kinds of things come into play later. But you can be a leader without that role. And I like to say here, at little bird marketing, I never give people the title of leaders, I don’t, I don’t turn people into leaders, I do have a duty of care to try and help develop people. But I just recognize leadership. When I see it, then we say okay, let’s call a spade a spade. Let’s put either leadership in this title or let’s acknowledge to the entire team what they already know, which is that they should be following this person.
Nicole: I love that love that. And I, you said something really cool. And I don’t want people to miss it. Because sometimes people have a little bit of genius that leaks out. If we don’t call attention to it. They might not know that it’s genius. But you said I have a duty of care to develop people. So I love that. I think that that is definitely a skill of a leader is to have the mindset in the heart of a duty of care to develop people. So I adore what you just said.
Priscilla: And I was right up my alley. I think it really comes to some humility. And I think in terms of entrepreneurs, we would do well to have some humility to realize that, you know, these are our dreams. And we have wonderful people who come alongside us and help us achieve our dream along the way. They need to achieve some of their dreams too. And so it’s like, you know, it’s very easy for an entrepreneur. I think to get the blinders on and look at leadership as I’m leading everybody to where I want to go. And it is exciting.
We’re visionaries, typically, and we really pushing hard, we typically are very over workers over achievers. This is like the bucket, right? A lot of us are in. But we can’t stop and remember that those people who are coming and helping us achieve our dreams, they also have their own, and how can we do those alongside each other? Because they’re not mutually exclusive. So that duty of care for me is to say, you know, what, is it that you want to do here? How do you want to contribute? And where do you see yourself, you know, in a couple of years, and, you know, trying to have those conversations dynamically, because they don’t stay the same all the time?
Nicole: That’s right. That’s right. I think there’s nothing more beautiful when two visions are around maybe the same cause the same subject the same, you know, outcome in terms of we can both be successful along the journey. I love that. Well, you know, in your bio, we talked about the fact that you’ve been making waves in the digital marketing industry. So tell me a little bit about the surfing that you’ve been doing in your career?
Priscilla: Yeah, I think what what the really that like the that ocean, if we’re going to continue that metaphor that we’re all swimming in, is one of incredible confusion. Right? A lot of owners, they just don’t know what to do. And they’re doing a little bit of this, a little bit of that. And they’re just like, you know, swim over here, do this little marketing thing. So I’m gonna do this. And then it’s just, you know, the waves, they don’t, nothing can be pieced apart, they don’t know what’s working, what isn’t, they’re being tossed back and forth. You know, the next person they hire comes in and says, Ah, this is the idea, let’s ride this way. You know, it’s just like, you know, that extended metaphor to me is really helpful, because it’s just feels like all over the place.
And also, like the ocean, it also feels a bit dangerous, you know, there are things really to win and lose. And so I think that a lot of people who are responsible for the revenue of their companies, I think they’re a little bit adrift. And so it’s about really coming in and saying, look, it’s not just doing the right marketing actions that matter, you have to get them in the right order, you have to understand how they connect. And if you don’t get them in the right order, it’s just as good as not doing them. So it’s very hard, because marketing can be one of those verticals, where there’s a lot of, you know, a lot of faffing about what I call, there’s a lot of movement. But there’s not a lot of necessarily root movement toward the revenue goals and the brand promise. So we have to be very careful that we don’t just do a lot of things, but we do a lot of meaningful things.
Nicole: Oh, I love that I love that do a lot of meaningful things. Yeah. So you know, when you think about a leader and their company and putting their message out there, their brand messaging share a little bit with us, how somebody’s leadership and their brand message, how those two things go together. I mean, I think the you know, there’s a saying by John Maxwell, who’s a infamous, you know, author of a bazillion leadership books, which I think I have about 12 of them on the shelf right here. But he says that everything rises and falls on leadership. So getting very clear about your brand. And what it stands for is a huge leadership skill. So how do you help a leader get really clear on okay, let’s do your brand. Let’s make sure we message it correctly.
Priscilla: Mm hmm. I think the the first thing that I do comes back to that sense of humility I talked about I try and get the leader to quit thinking about everything from their perspective and to quit looking at their special little baby or thinking of their company as a special little snowflake. I refuse to write web copy that says, we started in blah, blah, blah, I’m like, unless you’re over 100 years old, I’m not interested. And it makes no difference to me. And so I think the first thing in terms of helping leaders really understand their brand promise and communicate it, I think it’s about getting them to change their focus, and put their focus on who they serve, and who they serve best.
So for me, everything strategic, everything leadership driven, has to do with really defining your most ideal client. And or you want to call it your most ideal buyer, but it’s actually looking at the entire world through their view. Now I’m actually trained as a cultural anthropologist, and not through school as a marketer. And so I think this is where this comes in very helpful, we have to take the perspective from the other. So it’s about really digging in and saying, well, let me understand why someone cares about our brand promise, promise? Why does someone care about our products or services? What are they using them for? How is it bettering their life, and again, this extends over to the duty of care. If you’re going to product or service or anything, and you want people to pay you for it, then you better take care of those people who are using it.
So it all has to start there. The leadership has to decide, we’re not going to look inward anymore. We’re going to look outward. We’re going to listen to the people who we’re serving, because even over time, even well, seated brands have to stop and listen because their most ideal client changes over time. And they have to develop new markets. This is an ongoing dynamic experience that leaders have to do to constantly look out and say, who are you? What challenges are you facing? What persistent troubles do you have? What newly emerging challenges are you facing? What can we help you solve? And how can we do it in alignment with our brand promise?
Nicole: That’s absolutely beautiful. Yeah. So I’ve kind of heard like little parts of like servant leadership, and they’re this this parent, this part about care and humility. I love that. Now, tell me what you were trained in again, cultural anthropology. Did I get it? Right?
Priscilla: That’s correct.
Nicole: Okay. Well, we would like to know a little bit more about that. I’m pretty sure I want to know more. I’m pretty sure my listeners want to know, tell me a little bit about that. That sounds so cool.
Priscilla: Well, cultural anthropology is just about studying the culture and how humans relate to each other. What are the agreements we have within cultures and subcultures about what we’re going to do, we have these tacit agreements we walk around with all the time, you know, and we don’t give much thought to them, they’re different from culture to culture, it’s pretty obvious to say, you know, you can see that it’s different, maybe, you know, something that we would do in the US to something somebody wouldn’t do in India, that seems really obvious.
But there’s also major cultural differences between generations within cultures within socio economic groups within race within, you know, even like small little enclaves of little cultures, let’s say, you know, like, I lived in California for a time well, Vietnamese, who live in Garden Grove do very different things than the Vietnamese population at large, you know, it doesn’t matter if it’s, you know, driven by, you know, culture, or just experience or, or language or economics, maybe education level, no matter what we all as humans belong. And so we belong into maybe, many, many categories, right? So now I belong as a sister, I belong as a boss, I belong, you know, in a group of leaders, I grew up, I belong in so many different things that each one of those subcategories has its own culture, and its own understanding.
And so being able to, you know, really see the human inside of that and how they operate, really helps companies break down their marketing messages, because we are not logical human beings. We are not data, we are not robots, we are not your consumer, like this consumer 12659. Right. We’re humans who interact with things. And so understanding that from the get go is super important in terms of creating a marketing campaign, or marketing messaging.
Nicole: Yeah, yeah. So you know, I love what you’re saying about, I got to understand who the customer is at, like, if I was going to be like your person I was going to have coffee with, right, like, I got to understand, you know, what you’re going to tell me about your day, and how you interact with the people around you, and how the product actually serves how I get along in life, it makes my life better by the fact that I use your product or your service. Yeah, that’s fantastic. So we all need to be cultural anthropologists.
Priscilla: Absolutely, absolutely. But you know, I work a lot. And I serve the market research industry, which does the data behind the understanding and they also do the qualitative studies. The the ethnography is that our cultural anthropologist, you know, type of studies, but I just saw on LinkedIn, someone posted this hilarious picture today. And it was like the quote was, you know, a CEO, saying, we completely understand our companies, we don’t need to see the data. And it was this video of all the kids at this playground, and there’s this big hill. And there’s two really sophisticated, very cool, expensive slides.
And instead, every single kid on this playground is sliding down the actual front of the, you know, of the parking of the of the playground, nobody is on the actual slide. So it’s like, yeah, everybody’s sliding, but they’re not sliding the way you think they are not using your product the way you think they are. So you might think that they love your product, but they’re not even they’re not even stinking in the actual slide coming down the hill. So perfect. I loved it.
Nicole: Right, I’m gonna have to check that out. Get that on my feed, whatever you are looking at. Fantastic. Yeah. And it’s true. It’s like, are they sliding? Yes, but they’re not on our slide, or they’re not using this slide the way you know, you know, the old thing is, I used to be in the property management business, Priscilla, and we would, you know, build these beautiful apartment communities and we put sidewalks in day one. And then we got smart. And we waited to put the sidewalks in, and we would wait until the path was traveled to the front door of the apartment community. And that’s where we laid the concrete. It was I mean, it was genius. Right? So, you know, people are people are going to find the path that they want to take and the marketer, the leader needs to figure out where are the people going, what path do they find, right?
Priscilla: I’m totally gonna steal that, for example, Nicole, that is just that is perfect. Get the data first. Then carve out your path. It’s a little bit egotistical for you just to lay the sidewalk down.
Nicole: That’s right. It would be like, you know, a straight arrow, but like really, people would like come in from the side of the parking lot and go like that. And then we would build something it was much more beautiful to, right, because it had a little curve to it and all that anyway. All right, so too fun. All right. So tell me a little bit about your SOAR system. I’m really curious about that. You know, I get it. Now we’re back to the birdies. Right. So tell me a little bit, a Little Bird Momma about the SOAR system.
Priscilla: Yeah, so the SOAR system, and anybody can crib this, I don’t have to work for Little Bird Marketing, if you want to take this, these are the marketing actions, and in my opinion, the order in which they need to be done. This is the freebie. So S stands for strategy, O stands for organized, A stands for accountable, and R stands for repeatable. So any any marketing plan that you do needs to be you know, those four things, and in my opinion in that order. And so the reason why I think this is, you know, super important for people to understand is that I get a lot of people who come to me and they’ll jump to something like, hey, what do we need to be measuring? And what are the KPIs? And they’re off to the races with this? Like, I kind of want proof, and I want to know, what’s, what’s going on here? But the reality is, is that they have we don’t even know what we are measuring or what we should be measuring.
Nicole: Sometimes you’re measuring the wrong thing.
Priscilla: Exactly.
Nicole: And then it dawns on you. Oh, it’s not that it’s this part right here.
Priscilla: Yeah, sure, for sure. And so the strategy for me comes from what I taught the base of it, in my opinion is, you know, personal, I’m sorry, is your most ideal client, your persona development. And you could have one, you know, one persona, you could have be serving five, you could have a lot of different personas your company is is serving, but you need to know who they are, where they’re at, etc. So that’s the basis of it. And then you have to have it organized. So we have an entire system within 30 to 45 days, we have the entire year of content strategy built out, it’s visible, you can see it right on the project management board. We know how many blogs, how many emails, how many social posts, how many lead magnets, we know where we are going to create the sidewalks, right?
Because we’ve right to the personas. And we said oh, where do you like so how do you like to get into this? Where do you like to enter? And so we go create all those inter entrance points. And then the A is for the moment, whether it’s six minutes, six weeks, or six months later, when someone goes, hey, we should I think, accountability, that might be a fantastic idea. And as I always say to my clients, happy to take more money for you happy to do it with you. But why are we doing this? And the question always has to come back and say is it S? Does it fit our strategy? Is it O? Can it be organized down to where our checklists have checklists? Like, do we know that this is going to get across the finish line? Because, you know, the road to hell is paved with all of the unfinished marketing projects? Right?
Nicole: Right. Yeah.
Priscilla: That’s the organization. So then we hold that accountable. Now, once we do that, and we practice that, s o a, s o a, and we get things done and we get traction, then the R comes in, we can begin to repeat things, because now we have not anecdotal evidence or not what your uncle thinks we should be doing for your marketing. We have now our own data, we have our own proof. And we know two things. We know what we should double down on. And then secondly, and in my opinion, most importantly, we know what we should stop doing, because it’s not working. Right.
Nicole: Right. Yeah. So it’s the stop doing start doing and keep, you know, keep doing kind of thing, right? Yeah, that old thing, which is not an old thing, everybody, that’s really good. So stop doing start doing and keep doing, you got to check in every once in a while to figure out what’s going on? Well, you know, I like your SOAR so much, because even if you’re a CEO, Director of Operations, an organizational development person, I think that your, your acronym is perfect, you know, to do strategy, get organized, be accountable, and then repeat, right? Because people also need some kind of predictive, you know, pathway that we’re going down like, we’re not all over the place, right? A lot. A lot of employees are like, the place, but if it but if the leader can be on the straight and narrow for a while, it feels very good, you get that momentum going.
Priscilla: Absolutely. This this whole point of SOAR is to create a firm and sustainable lead generation system. And when we say it’s sustainable, there also has to be a part where we can begin to predict it. Like if we do if we put these things into, you know, the system, this is what’s going to come out on the other side. Of course, nothing’s 100%. But we need to be gathering the data so that we understand how you know how we are going to fare in Q1 and how we’re going to fare in Q2. This is the kind of info that that brands need. So it’s two things. First, brands need the marketing chaos turned into clarity.
I mean, just what are we doing? And then secondly, they need to know that and if we do more of x, we should expect more of y. So it’s that two sides of things. And and I kind of couch it by just saying, you know, ideas are a dime a dozen. Yes, we’re an award winning digital agency. Yes, we have amazing videographer photographer and graphic designers and web guys. And, you know, we had a web gal. I’m saying web guy, cuz I really only have a web guy. But you know, we have all this stuff, you know, but it means nothing, if it’s not a part of a system that is actually, you know, digitally transforming your marketing actions to align with your brand goals, period.
Nicole: Yeah, and I love what you’re saying. I mean, like, you can have the most amazing talent in the world. But if they aren’t involved in strategy, those very talented people aren’t organized and they aren’t accountable. And we aren’t doing things that are repeatable and predictive. I mean, we’re out of, we’re out of business. So talented talent is talent is 50%. And then execution, right, so you got to have both? Absolutely. Well, you know, you you’ve been the CEO of your own company. Well, three companies, and one in particular, well, how do you juggle your life? Like, how does Priscilla the woman survive? Give us some feedback on how you get it all done? We need some tips.
Priscilla: Well, sometimes I don’t get it all done. And I think that’s maybe a little bit of what people need to hear also, I, you know, strangely, I’m wearing a heart monitor today. Because, you know, I need to take care of myself. And this is very hard on entrepreneurs. And I, I like to, you know, be a bit vulnerable with people because they need to realize, you know, realize what is, what is it that you’re going to give, you know, to work? And, you know, how can you get to a place where self care is, you know, non negotiable? And how can you build a great team who can help you do that, and you’re doing that same thing for them.
So I guess the biggest piece for me is, you know, I know that I always try to do a lot. But I know that building a team is the only sustainable way to get things done. And also, it’s the only sustainable way to scale. And I heard this statistic just this week, that only 10% of businesses ever moved past a million dollars in revenue. And I just was like, wow, that is crazy to me. But I understand it, because too often, the business is reliant on the actual CEO, like and it can’t move past them. It can’t, you know, it can’t. It either the CEO runs out of a network, or they don’t build to scale.
And so I guess the other piece, I’d say that I think is the most important is that you’ve got to just pay attention to your core team, obviously, you know, your core team, then tazed, pays attention to all the rest of your team, but really trying to do your very best and you know, with that team, and having real honest conversations and and being willing to admit when you’ve been wrong with that team and have a dynamic where you can change, you can say, yeah, I know, I said that before I’ve really rethought about it. And I think this is where we need to go. And I think this would be better for me, this would be better for you. You know, having those kinds of conversations are how you can get it all done. But it’s inevitable with a an entrepreneur, there’s gonna be times when you’re giving it all there’s gonna be times when you can walk away and go on a vacation. I mean, it’s just, you know, I don’t think that you can predict any one particular thing for entrepreneurship.
Nicole: Yeah. Well, I think it just all comes back to humility, where you started. I mean, you just dovetailed it nicely, you know, saying that, you know, admitting you’re wrong. And many you need help admitting you can’t do it all yourself. I mean, that’s kind of what I heard you say? So I love that. So again, that that humility of the of the CEO or the leader? Yeah. So, you know, I like this phrase that I’ve picked up from a guy named Dan Sullivan, he’s another coach, and he says, you know, you need to find who’s not how. And I just love that, you know, like, who can do this work just as good as you, right? Like, that actually exists? Right?
Priscilla: Yeah, I love that. I think about it like this, I think about it, we need someone who can envision the work right at that site, who can, you know, cast that vision, we need someone who can make that dream happen. And then we need people who can make that dream happen again and again, and make it repeatable. And I had to realize early on in my career, that I am only one of those, I cannot be all three. Now I could help the second person say, okay, well, this is how I want it done. I’m going to establish brand standards, but I can’t be the person getting it done. And then, you know, thirdly, that somebody needs to come alongside that person and say, and this is how we’re going to do it time and time again, we’re going to make this repeatable in the least amount of pain. And so in terms of the, you know, how do you get it done? I think you need to make sure that you have all of those sides of the work addressed.
Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, so when you look at your success, you know, you shared a little bit about what you did you figured out you know, I can cast the vision, I can help number two, but then then number two helps number three, so, you know, I’m kind of hearing that maybe you’re good at delegating and good at him. Powering people. What other skills do you think have made you such a successful leader that you can have three organizations going?
Priscilla: Well, I, you’re right, you picked up on that I’m a big delegator, I do not micromanage people, I tell people all the time, if I’m sitting down, or I’m doing your job, you’re probably about ready to leave here. I, I do not get my value, my worth, from the amount of work that I do, I think that’s very important for entrepreneurs, we have a saying here, at Little Bird Marketing says work your work job, not your worst job. Anything that you put on the table, especially as creatives, it is not a referendum on your worth, we are not even as co workers, people who should be able to touch each other’s worth, we could build it up, but we certainly should not be able to take it down.
And so I think that, you know, there’s a little bit of a piece of that of saying, you know, what’s made me successful, number one, understanding that, you know, that I have limits, and also understanding that, you know, I could totally fail at this tomorrow. And that’s a role failure, I could fail as an entrepreneur, but I do not fail, as Priscilla is still in my life showing up as I want to show up. And you have to divide those two things out as early in your career as you possibly can. Whether I’m a success, you know, in, you know, in financially or in the world’s eyes or anything like that, that’s great. And I’m certainly shooting shooting for it. And you know, I have really big goals, but they never are connected with with my own self worth. And that if you can just stay on that, you know, and tell your team that over and over again, so that they start realizing and also, when you do take a hit to your worth, because it happens is something will happen and be like, oh.
Nicole: Absolutely.
Priscilla: You know, it’s just can you recover, and you can recover better if you have other people who can see it, and other people can call it out and say, hey, that’s not the sum of who you are. That’s what you did today. But that’s not you, you know, and and helping to release you of that I think helps you constantly get better and better at what you’re doing. Because when you can see it as a role, then you can have a more a better view of what it is.
Nicole: That’s right, like more objective, right?
Priscilla: Objective. Yes. That’s the word I was looking for.
Nicole: Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, you know, you mentioned that, you know, some leaders can’t scale their business past a million. Right. And I did hear you clearly say it’s because they just don’t have the the who’s in place to get them where they need to go. They’re still hovering down there in the in the in the work that they need to maybe find somebody else to do it. But are there other things that you think separate successful leaders for the ones who struggle? What do you think are the keys to being a really excellent leader other than that scaling piece?
Priscilla: Yeah.
Nicole: More internally.
Priscilla: Yeah, that’s interesting. And I don’t even think that the scaling piece is necessarily mark of success, because some people intentionally don’t go past a million. And I think if that’s your best true, then that’s amazing. You know, and I don’t think that success is the larger that you get, what I think happens is that they don’t realize the dream that they have, because they don’t, you know, if they, you know, they put themselves in some kind of a box, or they think that being an entrepreneur means you have to do all of it. It’s kind of like when I was little, I always wanted to be an inventor. And I remember thinking through ideas and ideas, but every time I came back down to it, I’m like, Yeah, but that would need electricity. And I didn’t invent that.
So I can’t do that. And it’s like, I didn’t understand how innovation stacks on top of each other. I didn’t know that. I could use electricity to build the thing that I like, that’s not cheating. I didn’t know that. It’s so funny. But I remember thinking that as a little kid, and I think entrepreneurs do that to themselves all the time. It’s like oh, that would be good yet. Yeah. But then I got to go to the beginning. Got it. No, go, go collaborate get someone right, who’s already scaled or acquire or do something bigger? Like I think they missed the opportunity because they think they have to do everything themselves and they don’t. But what else is it that makes? I think maybe my own experience? The only thing I can say about just my own why I think I’m crazy successful in my own, you know, definition of it is because yeah, always bet on me.
I have had so many ups and downs. I’ve had my you know, we’ve been through a tornado. I’ve watched my my building burned to the ground. I’ve had, you know, employees steal from me. I’ve had I mean, I can think of. You know, this is every entrepreneur’s story over time and over time. But every time even when someone thinks they’re going to hold you hostage, either with a certain situation or a certain limit or a bank won’t do something or an employee does something wrong. All these things I just like nobody can hold you hostage to that dream, and you always turn around and bet on yourself. That’s been my own experience. That’s the only thing I can say. At least for me that I am 100% clear on and I don’t know if other people do that or they don’t or if they you know, figure out to what degree they they, you know they need to do that. I don’t know if everybody needs to do that. I’m just saying at the end of the day, I walk out of this door. And if everybody else lets me down, I know I’m not letting myself down.
Nicole: That’s right. And if you bet on yourself, that’s, that’s a huge motivator, right? That I’m gonna win. I don’t want to lose. Right, right. That’s great. I was its commencement season. We’re doing this podcast in May. And so I was at a graduation ceremony on Saturday. And the guy said that, he says, I never lose. I either win or I learn. And I thought that was fantastic.
Priscilla: You know, that’s actually that’s the same from Nelson Mandela. Actually. Yeah. He said, yeah. He says, Yeah, yeah, I’m either I’m either winning or I’m learning.
Nicole: That’s right. I’m sensing that’s what you do. That’s awesome.
Priscilla: For sure.
Nicole: Okay, well, let’s let’s do this. Let’s think that maybe there’s the special listener that’s listening in right now. They saw that it was gonna be you today, Priscilla, and it was going to be a CEO of a marketing company. Perhaps this is a person that wants to someday do what you’re doing, being an entrepreneur or they want to rise up in the ranks? What little piece of special leadership advice would you give to somebody who wanted to get ahead and get to the next level in their career? What would you say?
Priscilla: I would say, hands down, you better get good at networking. Building a collection of amazing leaders, and colleagues and peers is hands down the way to go. And people wait until they’re successful to go build a network. No, no, no, no, no, that’s how you become successful. And when you do that, a lot of people then you know, I teach people how to become, you know, social influencers on LinkedIn, but let me just tell you the mistake, they all make, they go out there and like, let me connect with you. Let me connect with you. Let me connect with you.
And instead of saying, let me help you, let me help you, let me help you. And because they come at it from a getting kind of perspective, they really never build this amazing safety net that one day they will have. And I think a lot about how this is a very American culture thing, like we have to, we have to be the end all we have to progress, we have to, you know, be the person who, who is the, you know, master of our own destiny, and we put ourselves out there. Or if you build a strong network, and it was clear what you wanted to be famous for, you’re not in charge of getting yourself famous.
Now, you could have a lot of people in a lot of different rooms, when you’re not around who speak on your behalf. And there’s a big difference with knowing a lot of people, and having a lot of people in your network who would advocate for you. And I think that more than anything, if you’re starting today, I don’t care if you want to be a CEO, if you want to be you know, have a seat at an agency, you want to start your own business, you want to go work for someone, I don’t care what it is, the next step to who you are, as a professional is expanding your network. And people think, oh, it’s just out there for the big thought leaders or whatever. Absolutely not. You listen to podcasts, every time you listen to a podcast, go connect with that person asked them a question, you know, see if you can do a favor for them.
And to that, and I guess I’ll end with my my saying that I’m going to die on this hill. And that is that collaboration is the new competition. Don’t go out there just trying to compete. It’s there’s not, there’s not a scarcity out there. There’s, there’s enough for everybody out there, go out there and try and figure out how you can help. You can also follow my hashtag on LinkedIn, which is #alwaysbehelping. If you come out, and you start doing that you will build a very strong network of people who are not like not just mentor you. I mean, that’s interesting, but who will sponsor you, and who will advocate for you who will open their mouths and get you the position the next thought the next committed connection, whatever it is, but start working on your network and get serious about it.
Nicole: I love that. I love that. All right. So Priscilla it has been absolutely delightful to have you here. So we’re going to always be helping build our networks. Have humility, right? And take good care of ourselves physically. Right. That’s our that’s the final message there. All right. Well, gosh, Priscilla, it’s been a joy to be with you today. And here’s where you can find her again. Tell us the hashtag I don’t have that. I don’t have that on my notes. Tell me that again.
Priscilla: That was #alwaysbehelping. Yeah, we use that all over. We actually started it on LinkedIn. But yeah, use it for anything. It’s a we don’t you know, it’s not ours. Go out there and find somebody you can help.
Nicole: Okay, fantastic. We can also find Priscilla on LinkedIn at linkedin.com. And it’s Priscilla McKinney. And then on Facebook you can find her at Little Bird Marketing and on Twitter @LittleBirdMomma. All right. Awesome to be with you today. I’m very grateful for your time and energy and your genius. Have a great rest of your day.
Priscilla: Thank you Nicole. See how you’ve become part of my network. So I already appreciate it.
Nicole: That’s right. And you know, I would just say to the listeners, I mean, I saw Priscilla on LinkedIn. And all I did was pick up the phone and call my podcast producer and said please help me get Priscilla on the show and like boom, here she is today. So she really helped me out. And Priscilla if I can help you, you just shout and I’m will come running.
Priscilla: Will do. Thanks so much Nicole.
Voiceover: Ready to up your leadership game? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with her unique SHINE method to increase clarity, accountability, energy and results. Email speaking@vibrantculture.com, and be sure to check out Nicole’s TEDx talk at vibrantculture.com/TEDtalk.
