How to Start Your Entrepreneurial Journey w/ Sport Tech Global Conference & Ross Crawford #scottsthoughts

Welcome to success story, the most useful podcast in the world. I'm your host, Scott D. Clary. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. The HubSpot podcast network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the latest and greatest, the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business. The HubSpot podcast network hosts act as on-demand mentors, entrepreneurs, startups and scale-ups through practical tips and inspirational stories. Listen, learn and grow with the HubSpot podcast network at HubSpot.com slash podcast network. Today, you're going to hear me on these sports tech global conference podcasts hosted by Ross Crawford. We speak about the habits and strategies that you should think about if you're looking to start your own business as a young entrepreneur or business owner. If you enjoyed the content, make sure you go listen to more episodes of the sports tech global conference. You can find them all at STGC 2021 on Instagram and make sure to follow Ross Crawford as well. Let's jump into the episode. This is myself on the sports tech global conference podcast. Hello and welcome to another episode of Kathy 21. I'm your host, Ross Crawford and in the hot seat today, we have another very special guest. Our guest today is a versatile businessman to say the least. He is currently the senior director at Grass Valley, a content and media technology company out in sunny Florida. He's also the longstanding host of success story podcast in which he alongside esteemed guests share their knowledge on the world of business and entrepreneurship. I'd like to welcome to the hot seat, Scott Cleary. How are you, Scott? Thanks. Very good. Thank you for having me. Perfect. You know the drill now. You've been briefed. It's three questions, three answers. You ready? That's cool. Perfect. First of all, tell us about your podcasts. Success story has been described as potentially the most useful podcast in the world that might be your own words though. I'm not entirely sure. So what sparked the idea and what does all for your listeners? The idea that sparked success story was to create a piece of media that would teach people the way that I like to be taught and where it would help people learn the way I like to learn and what that means is I wanted to create content interviewing successful people from the realm of business, but also from the realm outside of business, outside of traditional business. So just high performing individuals that can teach you how to be more productive, time management, live better, achieve more, and then wrap in some very crucial business concepts in terms of sales, marketing, hiring, recruiting. So a mix of all the things that in my mind, it would take to be successful within an organization, all these soft and hard skills, or outside of an organization if you want to start your own thing. And that's kind of the core content that I like to create and success story, which is why you'll see a wide range of individuals, but I'll focus on building out some sort of playbook that they've implemented in their life unpacking that and then using that to teach something tactical tangible that you can take away five minutes after you've listened to the podcast and execute on it or implement it into your own life. And that was the premise for the podcast. And that's hopefully what I've tried to achieve over the past two and a half years. So the, the guess that best reflects the overall attitude of the podcast, in my opinion, would be Anthony Scaramucci. I love his conversation. He is not a traditional business individual. It's not like he is currently an operating director or CXO in an organization, but he's very smart individual. He actually rose to fame because he was Trump's director of communications for if I'm not mistaken, 11 days. And that gave him some notoriety before Trump fired him. But just in terms, now he's into finance. He has his own fund and he does a lot of investing and all that kind of stuff. But the lessons that he teaches over really show how anybody who is a high performing individual basically has the same mindset, same personality traits and same convictions that it would take to be successful in your own business, in the world of finance, in the world of politics, in the world of startup entrepreneurship. So I love that episode. Obviously, it's a notable name and he's an inspirational guy to speak to. So I would check that one out for sure. As I said, there's plenty of episodes out there for the listeners. And one of the ones I found interesting and a topic I find interesting in general is making the most of your time. So now certainly it seems you've been able to accomplish that so far. You definitely won many different business hats. So do you have any advice for someone who's looking to potentially start their own business, even if it's just as a side hustle, but they don't feel like they have the time? Yeah, sure. So I would say first of all, you have to take an honest look at where you are spending your time because there isn't a person on this earth, even if they do have family, kids, commitments that has zero time to themselves. And if they do, I would reevaluate where you're investing your time and reevaluate what's a priority and what's not in terms of Netflix and potentially going out with friends and whatnot. And I'm not saying those are not things that you have to include in your life to balance it out. But I mean, you take some of the time spent on less mission critical activities and spend it on building something part time, doing something as a hobby, as something that you enjoy casually. And if you continue to do that, thing casually, even if it's not something that you're doing religiously, regimented day in, day out, it will start to manifest and iterate and turn into something. So that's very good high level. But what does that actually look like? So for example, when I first started the podcast, I was not religious about doing it every single week. I tried to, but I missed weeks or like life happens. But I would never let it go more than two weeks without putting out an episode. So over the course of the first six months, maybe it's not a week, an episode every single week. But it's still, you know, five or six episodes. And then, you know, five or six episodes over the course of like two, maybe two months. And then, you know, month three, now I hit an episode every single week. And I do that. And then I start to get into the groove. And it becomes easier. And I learn how to do it better and quicker and more efficiently. And then all of a sudden, the hobby has now started to take on a life of its own because just by doing it and can you need to do it and persevering and not giving up, it started to become easier. And it started to become a habit versus a chore, which it should never be. And then that, that habit can now turn into something that you're doing two years later, which will now start to manifest monetization opportunities. It will get more of an audience. The podcast obviously has. And it's turned into something that could now seriously be full time if I wanted to make the jump into it just because of the ad revenue and the partnerships that I've set up for the podcast, just as a result of showing up for the past two and a half years. So I would say the biggest impediment of somebody doing a side hustle is either they're unrealistic about how much time they have or they don't want to admit that they have time, but they rather not give up on something that they feel they enjoy doing like, like some leisure activity or perhaps they're just scared to start and they're using Netflix or going out with friends as a, as a, almost like an excuse or an escape from starting. So I would just say it's just start and just keep going with it, even if it's not perfect, even if it's not something that you're doing every single day, it's just about starting. And then once you started that flywheel starts moving and then if you have the, you have the convictions of an entrepreneur that wants to get something done and wants to create, you will always find a way to keep it going. But the biggest issue is just starting. Nice. Finally, I could eventually just use like an entrepreneur, business executive author, keynote speaker, host, and they'd all be right, anything that I do. So what is it maybe focusing more on the business executive stuff and the marketing and the brand building that you seem to enjoy and what they do? What is it that you enjoy about the work you do as an insight to some of our younger audience who potentially just started on their own career journeys? I love building stuff. That personality tree is again something that you see a lot in entrepreneurs, but I'm like even the, even the job that I do right now. So I was part of a startup that was building innovative software solutions for broadcasts and media who require that's why we're for Grass Valley now. But that mindset of wanting to build things, it's allowed me to create the podcast. It's allowed me to be successful in building a product, building out marketing strategy, building out sales strategy that lens cadence to an innovative product and helps it, you know, capture market share and helps it take it to market. So I just love building things and I love seeing the end result of putting in X amount of hours, X amount of work to figure out something and then to see the end result or the positive result of figuring something out, it's the best feeling you'll ever have. It is truly an incredible feeling. And that's why I think that that curiosity, creativity, building, it doesn't matter if you are within a company or outside, within a company, the term that I've seen thrown around a lot and I use entrepreneurs, somebody who is highly motivated to create and to build within an organization or entrepreneur. Those habits, that personality type of wanting to build stuff that I at least I enjoy, I think that is conducive to a highly successful career either within a company or outside of one doing your own thing, but it's all about building stuff and just seeing that stuff come together. I know it sounds like it's so straightforward, like yeah, of course, if you work really hard on a project and you see it come together, like obviously you're going to feel a bit about that, but when you start to do that at scale and you start to do that in a company and you see the end result, which is start up being acquired or podcast that started off as a hobby, starting to have advertisers and have an audience and have fans, like all that it's just a very good feeling. It's a super, super good feeling and it's just sort of like the realization of your efforts. I would advise anybody who's younger in their career, focus on being curious, on exploring, on trying to build things and if you can adopt that mindset into wherever you work or whatever you want to work on, that curiosity, that mindset of just trying to figure stuff out, I think that you're going to have an incredibly successful career and also a caveat to that, find an organization that lets you be curious, that lets you build stuff, that lets you try new things because not every company is a good fit for somebody like that. And usually that's why entrepreneurial types sort of gravitate towards start-ups because they can still build within a company as opposed to dealing with all the red tape and the politics that may come with a larger company. But if you can find a team or a company that lets you do that and lets you learn and lets you fail and they're okay with that to be able to try things, contribute, lend some ideas, that's a really rewarding thing and that will just set you up for, that mindset will set you up for success and literally whatever you do because the ability to figure stuff out on your own is truly a superpower. Interview the company you're going to work at and see if your personality and your aspirations sort of vibe with the company. Are they going to be a right fit? So that's important too, very important. Thank you very much Scott for sitting in the hot seat today. We wish you well for the future here at SDGC. Thanks very much. Thank you.