"An entrepreneur must assume that in all likelihood their business will take a long time to become successful."
Julian Lloyd Tweet
Meet Julian Lloyd, founder of Mindset Media. A Canadian entrepreneur, fitness addict, and marketing specialist with over a decade of experience in sales and marketing in multiple industries – specializing in the Automotive Industry. Has an eye for detail and thrives on finding creative solutions for the many problems businesses face on a day-to-day basis. Is able to perform and train clients on various business growth techniques including highly effective search engine optimization.
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Table of Contents
Thank you for joining us today. Please introduce yourself to our readers. They want to know you, some of the background story to bring some context to your interview.
Julian Lloyd: I was born in a very small town in Saskatchewan where not much is ever going on. As I was growing up my family moved to an even smaller town in Alberta and eventually when I graduated I moved to Calgary which is where I’ve been ever since. Right out of University where I took a quick 2-year program in Business Administration (with a major in Marketing Management) I got my foot in the door with a job for a large national corporation where I was seated at the front counter to deal with walk-in customers to help them place their ads in the magazine.
I was told I would make a certain amount that year but due to my hard work ethic, I earned 50% more. After a few months that year I was promoted to the team lead and after about a year or so I moved up to an Account Executive position to deal with the larger companies one-on-one instead of just walk-ins.
I also excelled in this position and although it was 100% commission-based (which seemed scary at the time) I was able to significantly increase my earnings each of the 5 years I was there until the day I chose to quit with absolutely no plan in place whatsoever. After about a year of jumping around trying to find out how to make ends meet… and making around $400/mo… I stopped by an old client from that job so that I could pitch them on a new energy contract (which was my job for a few months at the time) and while there they told me how their new Account Executive would never see them and they had lots of problems. They asked me to look through their issues for a moment and I did.
I helped them because of our previous relationship. While I was helping them I noticed one thing they were paying a company for that was OBVIOUSLY not being done whatsoever. I saw that they were paying $240/wk for a company to do their SEO (search engine optimization) work and it was obvious immediately that no work was being done. Knowing they were small and had no extra budget I told them to cancel that service and I told them that for the same price I would do their SEO.
I knew a little about it but not a ton so I also threw everything else I could think of at them. I offered to do their social media (which wasn’t big in business yet but I knew it would be) and to shoot a new video on each new piece of inventory that they brought in. They agreed. I created an agreement that they signed and just like that I went from suffering and starving on $400/mo… to signing up someone for $1000/mo which is the point where I thought to myself “Why don’t I just do that again?…. and again…?” That was the moment my business was born – it was for survival.
You are a successful entrepreneur, so we’d like your view point, do you believe entrepreneurs are born or made? Explain.
Julian Lloyd: If you asked me that when I was very young I would have said they are made but the older I get the more I realize that there are just certain skillsets that you either have or you don’t. Of course, you can always improve upon what skills you have… but just like no amount of basketball practice is going to make a man who is 5’8″ become 6’6″… no amount of practicing your business skills or social skills is going to get you to the place of people who are naturally gifted in those areas.
I’m not saying this to deter anyone from going after their dreams but it is just a fact that some people are starting ahead of other people when it comes to certain skills. I grew up watching my parents in a MLM and they went from having no money to doing pretty well for quite a while – in fact, they still make money from work they put in decades ago. That happened during the formative years of my childhood, I believe.
I saw them working hard every day. I heard their positive tapes playing when we were driving in the car. I saw their business associates talking them up and telling me how lucky I was to have parents who are leaders like them. It really ingrained a lot of positivity in my developing brain. I remember one day they could afford to buy a photocopier and I realized that I could use it to copy my line drawings and then bring the copies to school and sell them to other students for $0.25 so they could color them in. Other friends wanted to give me their drawings so I could copy them and sell them as well. I sold theirs for $0.15 since I needed my own cut of the money haha. I seem to have created a little fun business when I was in Grade 2. What I’m saying is it is hard for me to decisively state whether entrepreneurs are born or made.
In my example, I can never know if I would have thought of selling drawings if I hadn’t seen the entrepreneurial spirit in my parents or not. I believe some individuals are born with advantages for skillsets including the ones required to be a successful entrepreneur but I do not believe that should stop people without those natural skills from trying. Work hard. Work smart. Be honest with yourself and your results. If you constantly reassess and improve your processes over time you can improve indefinitely.
If you were asked to describe yourself as an entrepreneur in a few words, what would you say?
Julian Lloyd: I regularly tell people I’m like the Wild West of business. Although I took two years of business (long before I knew I would ever start one) I really knew nothing about it. As stated earlier in the interview, I fell into creating this business accidentally and out of necessity to be able to buy food. I know most business owners create a large plan beforehand and then stress over when to quit their day job to pursue their business… and that must be a hard decision to make. With me, I had already quit my job with no plan and was suffering for a long time with little to no income. It was easier for me to get excited about my first $1000/mo client because that was a huge increase in income for me whereas for someone else they would frame it as a downgrade from their day job income.
I’ve just been “Wild Westing” it from day one. I didn’t know I had to register my business and think of a name for it so I didn’t do that for years. I didn’t know what to do about accounting. I didn’t know I should make invoices for clients. I didn’t know if contracts were necessary or if a handshake was good enough because I trusted everyone. I didn’t know anything. I’ve simply not quit and I’ve learned by messing up all along the way. I think that’s the best way for me to learn because then you REALLY LEARN. I’m the type of person who learns best by doing… not by being told.
Whether that’s smart or not – it works for me! So if I had to describe myself as an entrepreneur type… it would be a true “from the ground up” entrepreneur. I learned and did all of the skills required and have been slowly delegating as the business has grown and I could afford to.
Tell us about what your company does and how did it change over the years?
Julian Lloyd: My company is a Digital Marketing company. I’ve described the beginnings earlier in the interview but basically, I’ve gone through two phases. In the beginning, I was throwing anything and everything at clients… I would do their SEO, Google Ads, Social Media, Social Media Ads, Photography, Videography, Inventory Management, etc etc etc all for a small monthly fee. I now believe this was due to my lack of confidence in my own skills. I probably didn’t think I could charge them anything for just SEO so I had to buffer against that with so many other offerings.
As time went on in business I continued to add more and more services to clients which I thought was a positive. But the second phase of business would be the OPPOSITE of that. I recently heard a friend I’ve made through business say that she has had serious growth by “niching down”. In her case she offered clients Instagram marketing… and I believe also Facebook. What she did to “niche down” was she started to only accept IG clients and only if they were top 200 Salons/Spas in North America. She stopped taking on anyone and everyone. It sounds like a bad idea at first – like why would you want to cut off the whole world from signing up with you? But I have slowly been taking that approach myself in recent years. Although I can still offer all of the services I’ve learned over the years I’m able now to get more clients (and larger clients) by offering a single service and just doing it extremely well.
Niching down has really changed my business. Apart from those two phases, I would have to say another more recent change is me letting go of doing every single thing myself. I can’t continue to grow because there are only 24 hours in a day and I can’t do everything forever unless I want to take on a limited amount of clients and continue to increase my rate. I’m delegating more services to others who I can trust. I like that I truly built from the ground up because I know how to do every single service my company offers – which means I know how to recognize the talent I would need. I know how to guide them. I know when there is a real issue they might be dealing with and how I can help them handle it and they know I have been “in the trenches” myself and dealt with this type of stuff and that I’m not just some business guy who started a company on day one by hiring other people who are experts in their field. I’m quite the expert in all of the fields we offer as well. Being skilled in all areas within your business gives you clout within your organization.
Thank you for all that. Now for the main focus of this interview. With close to 11.000 new businesses registered daily in the US, what must an entrepreneur assume when starting a business?
Julian Lloyd: An entrepreneur must assume that in all likelihood their business will take a long time to become successful. As you state, 11,000 new businesses are registered daily in the US alone… which means there is a LOT of competition. You combine that fact with the high rate of business failure within the first 5 years and it can get pretty daunting at times. You must be passionate about what you do to be able to pull through the hard times. Are you going to be willing to make little profit for 5 years? 10 years? That is more common than one might think. If you truly enjoy what you do then the odds of you making it through and becoming successful increase exponentially.
Assume you are going to have months when you doubt yourself. Assume you are going to have months where you lose money. Assume you are going to run into situations where other competitors are trying to tear you down in some way or another. Assume stressful legal situations arising. But also assume that once you “make it” it is all worth it. A side note: When I say you need to be passionate about what you do that doesn’t necessarily mean what you think. You might be thinking to yourself “I’m starting a company around Google Ads… how can I be passionate about placing ads and digging through all the data and readjusting all the time? That’s sort of boring”… but that’s the wrong way to look at that example.
It doesn’t have to be the literal thing you do day-to-day that you are passionate about. Maybe in that situation, your passion is making people happy. I’ve found myself in situations where I’m working with ma and pop shops and although I’m doing “boring” things for them I’m able to see their faces light up when their business is growing. I talk to them and form long-term relationships with them and know that I’m indirectly impacting their lives in a positive way. That’s how you frame it. Be passionate about impacting lives positively.
Did you make any wrong assumptions before starting a business that you ended up paying dearly for?
Julian Lloyd: Yes. I have endless examples but I’ll stick to a simple one. I was naive and assumed that a little Word Document agreement I created would suffice… and it did… until it didn’t. I had a client in real estate many years back who ended up not paying one month because they stated they were waiting for some large deals to go through that were delayed. I ended up trusting this person for MANY months in a row and they had built up a substantial outstanding bill from my company… which at the time was just me and I wasn’t making much money at the time.
I had to continue to trust this person because I really needed that money from them. I couldn’t be rude to them about it as I thought that would make them decide to never pay me. I got stuck in this mental loop of not wanting to aggressively call him out on it while continuing to put in work for him each month in the hope that I’d get a big payday from him eventually – but that never happened. He ended up getting into a lot of trouble with the law for many reasons and I (along with many other businesses) didn’t get paid. It was in the local news for a while.
From that moment on I learned the importance of legal contracts with clients… ones that locked the individual into paying for services even if their company went under or they declared bankruptcy. This is one example of me learning as I go. Another way I’ve buffered against this happening again is I now bill companies on the 1st of the month before I begin any work because I’m not able to put a lien on it like you can with cars or homes. Once I’ve done the work it’s already done and they already are getting the benefit.
Although I bill on the 1st before working now… I still have tight contracts with all clients because sometimes unexpected expenses occur that I cover for them on the spot and I expect to be reimbursed.
If you could go back in time to when you first started your business, what advice would you give yourself and why? Explain.
Julian Lloyd: I wouldn’t change anything really. It’s that classic situation of once you’ve gone through all the hardships of something and come out the other side… you hesitate to change anything because it would have shifted your outcome. If I had to chose something I guess I would just tell myself to openly discuss my business more. I was not confident in what I was doing. I didn’t know what I was doing was even a valid business. I literally (as far as I knew) made it up out of thin air.
I just thought there was value in what I could do and figured people would pay me for giving them value. I didn’t know people charged other people for social media etc. It sounds crazy now but I just didn’t know at the time. Because of that and my lack of faith in my own skills, I didn’t want to tell my friends what I was doing. I didn’t consider my business to be real. Once I reached the point (MANY years later) where I felt I was legitimate I slowly started to do things like purchasing a website and getting on social media for my own company.
I started to mention what I do to people and then that became a more powerful source of leads than anything I’d done previously. The power of word of mouth is serious. Open mouth, open business… right?
What is the worst advice you received regarding running a business and what lesson would you like others to learn from your experience?
Julian Lloyd: This answer is going to maybe not be exactly what you’re looking for but it’s along the same lines. I would only get maybe 1-2 new clients each year for the first many years… I give them a proposal and then bill them recurring monthly. I had no idea where to price my services but since my very first client was about $1000/mo I figured that must be a good spot. As I continued to do business I got one client who couldn’t afford the $1000/mo and we did a deal for $500/mo. After a long time of charging that company that rate it started to change my own belief in the value of my services.
I started to sign more and more people at that low rate. I started to wonder if my first client, who happened to be $1000/mo, was only signing that large of a deal because of our previous business relationship. This was an issue that plagued my mindset for a long time. I was dealing with clients and attracting more clients that were of a scarcity mindset. They could only afford small packages and would constantly complain about everything and never get me what I needed when I needed it. This slowly beat down my opinion of my skills and what I’m worth. It wasn’t until I just happened to sign up for a business with an ACTUAL marketing budget already available that I started to reframe all of these thoughts about myself.
All of a sudden I was doing the same amount of work as I did for the smaller guys but I was getting positive feedback from the client. I was making more, having a better time, believing in what I’m doing again, and that lead to me attracting more high-quality clients. I’ve not looked back since. Another benefit of dealing with higher quality clients is that when they give you referrals, they have already prepped those referrals for the fact that I, and my company, are of a high quality. We are worth a high amount of marketing spend
Scarcity mindset businesses give referrals and already prep their referrals to only spend a little bit of money. All of that said, the worst advice I was given was basically from clients making me feel I’m not worth much. You need to remember that some companies are just going to be “that type of people” and to not let it get to you. The problem with me is that I rarely got new clients so if I only had 3-4 clients total and half of them made me feel worthless then I began to identify that way… but surprise surprise… I was just dealing with the wrong type of people.
My advice to others to avoid this would be to know your worth (but you need to be honest about it) and to have enough clients that you aren’t getting yourself unknowingly stuck with a bunch who are bad for you, your mindset, and your business.
In your opinion, how has COVID-19 changed what entrepreneurs should assume before starting a business? What hasn’t changed?
Julian Lloyd: COVID-19 has proven that everyone is comfortable making purchases online. Many local clients of mine who only had brick and mortar stores had to think creatively to make it through the pandemic… and a lot of their strategies included an online store. Entrepreneurs should assume, in a post-pandemic world, that they can be successful online.
It isn’t like decades ago when it was considered risky to make purchases online because your banking information might be stolen… nowadays your credit card company or PayPal will usually cover you for this. Purchasing things like clothing is also quite nice now as the companies will allow you to send anything back (usually completely free) if it doesn’t fit properly. The risks of doing business online are less and less every year. Entrepreneurs should assume that their online component will be a very serious aspect of any business – even brick and mortar ones.
As for what hasn’t changed… is the fact that people, although used to dealing online now, still want to deal with an actual human. Do NOT completely automate every process if possible. If you can take a moment (depending on your business model) to actually reach out one-on-one to a customer then do that. Humanizing the experience can really set you apart from the competition.
What is a common myth about entrepreneurship that aspiring entrepreneurs and would-be business owners believe in? What advice would you give them?
Julian Lloyd: That it’s a non-stop highlight reel. Don’t assume that what you see on Instagram or YouTube is reality. Yes, there are moments that are amazing but they are few and far between (in my experience). I’m not saying it’s always difficult… I’m saying that the wins usually aren’t Instagram-worthy moments. If I have a win it’s signing a large client… and getting them good results…. but what does that look like on social media? Like nothing. Am I going to post an image of a signature? Yeah, cool. But I’m not going to have these wins you see online where I’m in a private jet or driving my Lamborghini around.
Wins are great but let’s be realistic about the simple day-to-day wins of entrepreneurship. Generally, nobody is there to clap for your wins. You just realize you made a win and you move on. You need to be good with that. If you are on the fence about starting a business because entrepreneurship has become very trendy lately and the final straw that puts you over is that you want to be able to post photos of yourself on Instagram with fancy things…. then you probably shouldn’t start a business.
You need to do it for the right reasons and IG clout isn’t the right reason. My advice for them would be to dream big but also stay grounded in your expectations and why you are doing this in the first place.
What traits, qualities, and assumptions do you believe are most important to have before starting a business?
Julian Lloyd: A trait you must have is the ability to get up after you’ve been knocked down. I think this was ingrained in me in my teenage years when I was sponsored for 8 years to be a skateboarder… yes I know that’s not a very “business” thing to mention but it’s true.
In that life, you need to know that you are going to fall and get hurt literally hundreds of times per day and you just have to keep getting up and trying again. You’ll usually get where you want to get if you’re able to take your losses in stride. You learn that losses are a part of the process. You can’t expect to win right out of the gate. People who believe that usually try once, fail, and quit. You need to almost take pride in your losses. I remember when starting a business of mine I had a piece of loose-leaf paper tacked into the wall of my little apartment and my goal was to fill it with 100 names of people who said “NO” to me. I reframed the negativity of a loss into a positive.
I knew that once I hit 100 on that list that I’d almost be guaranteed to have found a certain amount of yesses. If you have the ability to reframe losses as a positive, learn from them, and also never quit… you’ll make it far in business. An assumption you need to make before starting a business is that you’ll take your fair share of losses. Don’t let it get you down. Losses are opportunities for learning.
How can aspiring leaders prepare themselves for the future challenges of entrepreneurship? Are there any books, websites, or even movies to learn from?
Julian Lloyd: Aspiring leaders can prepare themselves for future challenges of entrepreneurship by taking in as much motivational content as possible. Whether it’s books, websites, or inspirational movies – it’s all good! Just don’t get stuck in the loop of believing the more you watch the better you’ll be… you still need to get out there into the world and actually DO things. Take action. Don’t think “the universe will provide” or get too lost in The Secret type of thinking. If you don’t get out there and do things, nothing will happen.
I fell victim to that thinking for a while and it was extremely toxic. Since then I’ve even written a few blogs about how to properly use motivation and how to not think you’re above needing to seek it out through books, YouTube, etc. Apart from that type of media, I would say entrepreneurs can prepare themselves for future challenges by finding and associating with people in the business world. Whether or not these people are in your industry doesn’t matter; everyone has something they can teach you.
You can learn from their challenges so you’re prepared if/when that challenge presents itself in your life. What’s the saying? A smart man learns from his own mistakes but a wise man learns from the mistakes of others? I guess I should take that advice myself!
You have shared quite a bit of your wisdom and our readers thank you for your generosity but would also love to know: If you could choose any job other than being an entrepreneur, what would it be?
Julian Lloyd: Wow. That’s a hard one. As much as I said earlier that I don’t necessarily believe entrepreneurs are “born”… I think I was haha. I would need a job that gave me freedom. I guess for a long time I liked my Account Executive position at that large corporation. Over time it got more and more micromanaged but for a while it was great.
As lame as it sounds I guess I would like to be an Account Executive again at a place that let me do my own thing how I wanted to. They should be there for support but if I’m 100% commission, I don’t see why it’s their business to micromanage me, right? If I’m performing I’m performing. If not, fire me.
Thank you so much for your time, I believe I speak for all of our readers when I say that this has been incredibly insightful. We do have one more question: If you could add anyone to Mount Rushmore, but not a politician, who would it be; why?
Julian Lloyd: I literally just laughed out loud and said “WHAT?” haha. This is a tough one. I’m assuming it has to be an American. I’d say Martin Luther King, Jr. but I can’t say that I’m an expert on everything he did. I do know that he advanced civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience which I’m all for.
I’m a firm believer in his famous speech where he stated that we should be judging people on the content of their character rather than skin color. I believe the things he stood for are more than worthy of being represented on Mount Rushmore. He’s someone to look up to for sure… pun not intended.
Mike Weiss, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Julian Lloyd for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Julian Lloyd or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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