Navigating Business Growth and Embracing Change

VO BOSS

BOSSes Anne Ganguzza and Lau Lapides share an inspiring and candid conversation about the challenges and triumphs of leveling up your business. Anne opens up about her personal journey of growth, from small changes in her Pilates class to taking a significant leap in her company, battling the fear and discomfort that often accompany evolution. This episode offers profound insights into navigating change, the vital role of a supportive team, and the power of embracing risk for long-term success. Listeners will gain actionable wisdom on recognizing their own self-imposed limitations, the importance of strategic planning, and understanding that growth, while sometimes terrifying, is essential for avoiding stagnancy.

00:24 - Announcer: It's time to take your business to the next level—the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss, a VO Boss. Now, let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.

00:44 - Anne (Host): Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I am here with Lau Lapides in our Boss Superpower Series. Hey Lau, hey Anne.

00:54 - Lau (Guest): I'm so excited to be back. It's been a while, you know. It seems like it's been forever years. It hasn't been, it's been years, but it feels like that.

01:04 - Anne (Host): I'm going to say a lot has happened, and so I brought props to show you. So I have... actually, I love props. I care my props. I have actually leveled up, okay? So in many ways. So I have my three-pound weight and I have my five-pound weight. So in my Pilates class, I finally leveled up because when they say grab your light weights, I went from three pounds to five pounds.

01:26 - Lau (Guest): You're now a heavyweight.

01:28 - Anne (Host): Well... I don't know if it's heavyweight, but now, right, it's a change. I've leveled up, and while it may not seem like a lot over the long haul, guess what? It's going to mean a whole lot. And I thought it was such a great comparison for our businesses and how we can make simple little changes. And those simple little changes over time are going to make an amazing difference. And I even got like excited, and I wrote, "No sacrifice, no success." And then here's my little boot necklace to like kick myself in the butt to remind myself.

02:00 - Lau (Guest): We all need that, Annie, we all need that.

02:02 - Anne (Host): I love that, to do that, yeah. So I've taken some chances with my business, and I have done some things. I've made some changes, some not so small, but they've been coming for a while. In my head, they were small, and over time they evolved into a kind of, maybe, a bigger idea for a bigger vision for my company. And I thought it would be great to just talk about the process because it's not easy to level up.

02:27 - Lau (Guest): Oh, it's no, it's not the most challenging thing you can do. And it's funny how you have the thought, the imagination, the dream, which has nothing to do with the actual reality of doing it, right? So you're moving through that reality.

02:40 - Anne (Host): I consider the brain, right? My brain steps, my little steps over time, because I've been thinking about how am I evolving, how am I going to level up, how am I going to make these changes? And so in my head, I was making small changes, right? Until finally, I started implementing those small changes, and then kind of as a, I guess maybe a side effect or after effect of those small changes, then I needed to make bigger changes. And so now I have to say that through the process, it's been definitely a learning process, not only for... I like to say I have a clear direction of where I want to go, I know that, but also things have happened that have been, I guess, scary. They've been monumental, like growing challenges for me, but also moments where I've been... Oh, I get it now!

03:31 - Lau (Guest): Yes, let's hear, what are some of those aha discovery moments for you that caught you?

03:31 - Anne (Host): So the aha discovery, right? The aha discovery of evolving your business and always growing, and I'm always talking about that, right? I'm always talking about evolving, and I'm like, "Oh, I got an idea for this, I got an idea for that." I'm a little bit of a serial entrepreneur, but when it comes right down to it, I think that a big aha moment for me was in the process of doing this, is that I've learned a lot about myself, and I've learned where I myself get in my own way, right? I myself get in my own way, right? And I like to think that I don't, and that I'm all confident, and I'm... Yes, we can forge forward and be successful. But yet there's been some times where I'm like, "Well, am I doing the right thing?" And I second-guess myself, and then when I do that, I learn more about myself. Yes, and so it's really been a learning experience about myself and how there are ways in which I hold myself back, and how when it comes to growing your business, the team that you have in place can do a lot to support you.

04:33 - Lau (Guest): Now, before you go on, Annie, I want to know on a scale of one to 10, 10 being the most terrorizing, before you made the move, because a lot of our clients and talent ask us about this, like, "How do I make these really serious and scary moves?" How scared, terrorized, were you at the thought of that kind of change, which is semi-radical, especially when you're working with people for quite a while? How scared were you?

04:59 - Anne (Host): Terrified, terrified. I mean, terrified. It was a 10. It was a 10. Stress level eating, do you know what I mean?

05:05 - Lau (Guest): Well, thank you for being honest, I would agree.

05:07 - Anne (Host): I think it's true. Headache, neck ache. It never gets easier. No, it never gets easier.

05:12 - Lau (Guest): It's always a risk, a huge risk.

05:15 - Anne (Host): And we've talked about this. It's not like uncommon that we've talked about like taking risks and stuff like that. And even before, I was like, "Yeah, we take risks, we're bosses." And this time I took a big risk, and I think that I really challenged myself to take a big risk. And is it completely successful? I don't know yet, you know what I mean? It's evolving.

05:34 - Lau (Guest): And that's the nature of risk. If you knew, it wouldn't be a risk.

05:37 - Anne (Host): Exactly. I mean, I'm evolving with it, I'm growing with it, and I have faith that I'm determined that it will evolve into something successful for me, and so that I have. But the terror along the way has been surprising.

05:53 - Lau (Guest): Yes, yes, because it never gets easier. It never gets better. No, right? It just gets more, higher stakes, and it's funny. The stakes get higher. Yeah, and it's funny, what were the stakes for you this time around? Can you like break it down for the listeners? How did that work?

06:07 - Anne (Host): I'm going to keep going back to here, like right. So we all know my health journey, right? And my health journey took about a year and a half, right? To kind of come to fruition and get the news that, you know, I was not well, healthy, and I needed to do something about it. And then get to work, right? Focus, get to work. And so I was driven. I had a goal. I was driven. I didn't stop until I got to that goal. And then all of a sudden, I got to the goal and I'm like, "Wait, I have more goals."

06:34 - Anne (Host): And so my three-pound weight was always my weight that when the Pilates instructor said, "Go grab your light weights," I said, "Okay, three pounds," right? Three pounds is what? Before it was like one pound, I'm not quite sure if it might've been two pounds. Then I said, "All right, I'm going to graduate to three." But then just this past week I went to a five, and I said, for whatever it was, I had been thinking about it and thinking about it and thinking about it. Similar to my business. Right? I was thinking about the moves, I was stressing, I was nervous, I was like debating, I was researching, I did all the things in my head to evolve, and then finally, I took the leap. And so this past Wednesday, I took the leap, and I went to five pounds. Isn't that great? And it wasn't horrible, and it wasn't horrible. And now I know that there will be days when I'm not going to want to do the five pounds, but I'm going to push myself to do the five pounds.

07:24 - Lau (Guest): You're going to push, but there was something inside of you.

07:26 - Announcer: This is something I think the listeners have to know this.

07:29 - Lau (Guest): There was something inside of you, this little voice, that somehow knew that you could take it on.

07:34 - Anne (Host): And today was the day you could handle it, even though you felt nervous, scared, and with weights, you actually can get hurt, physically hurt, right?

07:44 - Lau (Guest): So of course you're not lifting 150 pounds, but you can still hurt yourself, right? Exactly. Well, let's transfer that now to your business.

07:52 - Anne (Host): Yeah, I mean, and it was funny because I thought about it, thought about it, thought about it, strategized, strategized, said, "Yes, I should. No, I shouldn't. Yes, I should." Today's the day.

08:00 - Lau (Guest): The back and forth, right, Annie? The back and forth. Yes, no.

08:02 - Anne (Host): And then I said, "Today's the day." Today is the day, right? And so literally, that's kind of what happened when I made the decision after I had been thinking about it, researching, going back and forth, "Okay, I'm going to do it," and then I started it, and it was like building a muscle, right? So I'm still in the process of building the muscle of my business and getting through the growth, right? So I'm going to grow my muscle with my five-pound weight.

08:29 - Anne (Host): I'm going to grow my business, right, with my growth strategy, and it's terrifying, it's uncomfortable, right? It's uncomfortable, but there are little successes that I'm seeing along the way, and that makes me happy, and that gives me the confidence to move on and to continue on my journey. And I know in my heart, right, I will make it work for me in the way that it's best. I think the one thing, Lau, which is interesting, is I always have to figure out what's the fallback, right? What's the worst-case scenario, and can I accept the worst-case scenario?

09:02 - Lau (Guest): What is the worst-case scenario?

09:02 - Anne (Host): The worst-case scenario was I'm committed to my growth strategy for a certain amount of time and a large amount of money, to be quite honest with you.

09:09 - Lau (Guest): Well, that's what I was going to say, that you lose a bunch of money that you don't feel you got any return on or any knowledge on. That would be the worst, wouldn't it? Honestly, I can't imagine that happening with you because you're going to squeeze the juice out of everything, but that would be the worst.

09:25 - Anne (Host): The confidence that I have, Lau, and I think that what we've spoken about as well in podcasts before, and I get excited about this, is that I said, "Okay, I have a certain amount of money, I can make a commitment, and I am okay if I lose this money." It's kind of like... it's like gambling. I was just going to say, I don't want to bring up gambling, but I will, because when I go to Vegas, I say, "Okay, I have a certain amount of money. If I decide that I want to gamble..." I don't really gamble a whole lot, like my gambling money is maybe 20 bucks, just to have fun.

09:51 - Lau (Guest): I don't either.

09:51 - Anne (Host): Because I'd rather spend my money on something that I know I'm getting. Like I'm getting a nice facial or a massage.

09:55 - Lau (Guest): I do too, I know. Or dinner. But doesn't that make it harder for you to make those moves because you're not a gambler?

10:05 - Anne (Host): Well, I'm not a gambler, let's say, in Vegas, but I am a gambler with my business in a lot of ways, because I know that if I don't, I will be worse off. If I do not grow, and I've said this before, stagnancy is the death of me. If I do not grow, that is the worst. And I think what was happening is I was at a place where I didn't feel like I was growing anymore, and I wanted to continue the growth. And I'm like, "How can I grow? How can I get more clients? How can I reach these clients?" And when I really researched the answers, it wasn't within my own industry, because I had my own circle already built, which was amazing, and I love my circle. I'm not giving up my circle, but I needed to get beyond the circle to bring in new people, to bring in, right, new clients, and that was, I mean, really, how was I going to reach those clients?

10:54 - Lau (Guest): So what does that translate to for you in terms of this last move that you just made? I know you can't get into too many details before your launch of it, but what did that translate to you in terms of the team you had and were working with, the new team you wanted to be working with, and the new concept that you had moving forward? What were the action steps that you really had to start taking on in order to realize that?

11:22 - Anne (Host): Well, action steps was, first of all, education and research, right, and understanding. And I was actually put in a situation where I needed to get a new team of professionals that could, first of all, handle my website, because the person that I had worked with for many, many years was not able to continue to do that. And so I was looking for more members of the team. And so in doing so, it's hard out there looking for people. I mean, we've discussed this before, like, do they know the industry? Do they not know the industry? What are their skill levels? And, to be honest with you, if people in the voiceover industry knew website development, there are a few people that do, but there's not a lot, right?

12:01 - Anne (Host): So I had to go outside of the industry to look for people that could handle the back end of my websites, because I got a lot going on. I mean, we know that the podcast here, there's a lot of products, there's lots of back-end workings in the website that set up appointments with me, that handle income and inflows and outflows and that sort of thing. So I needed to have someone that was capable in that to take over. And so in doing that was education, research, interviewing, and then also really having a hard look at the budget, because you know, I mean, I have a certain budget. And I think the one thing that sealed it for me—the go, right, the go, and go after thinking and strategizing and education—was having a certain amount of money set aside that I could risk, right, to move forward and know that if it didn't work out, I wasn't confined to a lifetime of it, right, financially or emotionally. I could get out of it if I needed to, right? And what would be the worst thing that could happen?

13:00 - Anne (Host): Well, I would lose that money. So I was just like, if I was going, I have this amount of money that I'm willing to lose, and now I'm ready to gamble. And that's really what it took. And that, just knowing that, having that security and knowing that I had a certain amount of money I was willing to invest and lose completely, completely, if things didn't go the way that I thought they were and I needed to get out, I was okay with that. And so I think that gave me the green light to go ahead and do it. And now, once I'm doing it, right, there's all sorts of like things that are like... I was not anticipating all sorts of obstacles in the path that I did not anticipate.

13:38 - Lau (Guest): Tell us about a few of those obstacles that you ran into.

13:40 - Anne (Host): Well, you know, if you're working with new people, they don't know you, right? They may or may not know your industry. These people did not know my industry, and so they need to be educated so that they can do the best job that they can. The amount of time that I spent educating it's amazing because, you know, I've been in this industry for, I don't know, 17, 18 years, and people that have been working with me have been working with me a long time, so that's a lot of years. Once you work with someone or, you know, you get to know them for that long of time, it's great, because you know the process, you know the industry, you know the person you're working with, you know what they're expecting. When you have new people, it's a whole new relationship, right? And it's like a new client, right, a new voiceover client, where I always loved voiceover because you got in and you got out quick.

14:25 - Anne (Host): A lot of times, yeah, you had a client that kept coming back. You developed a relationship, and typically it was an easy relationship because they've liked what you've done, and they were happy with it, and there was never really, for the most part, you're not having difficult moments within that relationship. This one, I am an owner of my business, right? I need to have it run in a particular way, so it's not like I'm the boss this time, right? Before, my clients, they're the boss, right? I have a skill that I'm providing, and I'm providing audio to them. They like it, they accept it, they pay me. It's great. They come back. Right, they give me new stuff. They like it, they accept it, they pay me. It's great. This, I'm the boss, right? I have to like it, I have to accept it, and I have to say, "This is great. This is moving my business forward." So I have to do a lot of assessment along the way, especially with new people who may not be familiar.

15:12 - Lau (Guest): Now I have a question about that, okay, because we get a lot of questions about this. Folks come in and feel like, "I'm working on a voiceover career or an actor career. If I need to hire people or I need to get a vendor to serve me in a particular service, they come in, they have their expertise. I pay them, they do it." The problem is they're missing the link of how much education and management you have to do when you hire a person, a consultant, a team. It's any person. It is not like, "Here, do my website, and I'm done, and I'll see you in a couple of weeks when it's done," and that's time consuming. Can you take us through, right, can you take us through a little bit of the process of how you are managing this new, brand new team of people who may or may not have the expertise in this industry? How are you managing those people? What does that look like in terms of time and in terms of effort?

16:05 - Anne (Host): Oh, it's a lot, it's a lot of time, it's a lot. It's more time than I anticipated, and I forgot. I mean, because I had gotten almost complacent because people knew me so well, right? I mean, and so now I have to educate new people, a new team, on how I want my business to move forward and who I am and certain things that I expect. And so the amount of time that was required, I did not anticipate. I thought it would be easy, but it's not. And it's interesting because it kind of brought me back to, you know, you think things are just automated and my web girl, I've worked with her for 15 years, she knows me, she knows exactly like what I love, she knows if I say I need something on my website, she could do it. I didn't have to like micromanage at all. Now, all of a sudden, right, there's a lot of time spent educating the new team on, "Here's the practices and the procedures. And this is the way that I like it, because I'm the boss, right?" That amount of time that I'm managing, and I don't like to micromanage. What I like to do is educate enough so that I can say, "Go be creative, do it." It's so funny because, no matter what they do for you, right, they have to know who you are and your brand in order to be able to help you grow your business further.

17:17 - Anne (Host): And I literally went to the boot. Again, I go back to the boot, but I went shopping yesterday. I had a gift card to spend it at this Western store, and I got a cowboy hat. I got a cowboy hat, it's really cool. And the guy branded it for me on the inside of it, and I said, "Well, I love branding." Right, I love branding. "Let's do my initials AG." You know, that's like my website, it's everything. So he has the branding AG. And then I said, "Oh, I like those stars. I'm a star, make me a star." And the way he branded me, he floured it. Like every time he put that branding iron on the hat and he picked it up, it was branded. It was like a big flourish. And I'm like, "I don't care what you do or how many stars you put on it, you're creative. He's like, 'Oh, I'm a creative person, you do your thing, I trust you. You can put as many stars on there as you want, but I'm a star.'" So he's like, "Okay." So I let him like creatively flourish with my brand. But I gave him the specs on, "Here's my AG brand, and I need it to look like this. But now you can flourish and enhance the brand."

18:15 - Anne (Host): It's kind of what I'm doing with my business, right? I'm allowing people to do what they're good at, and that's a big thing. Like to kind of give up the control to allow the people who are experts in what they do, like I'm not a graphic expert, right? I need a graphic expert to create beautiful graphics for my website or a beautiful graphic for my social media, and so that's what they do, right? So I'm like, "Here, here's my guidelines, here's the brand, here's what it looks like for the most part, but put your creative flourish on it," and I love that. That's how I want to be able to manage people. I want to be able to have people that I can say, "Here, here's your baseline, your guidelines for the business. This is how I need it to sound, this is how I want to be represented. Go ahead, put your creative flourish on it."

18:58 - Lau (Guest): Do you feel like, Annie, especially if it's a company that has never worked with someone like you or someone like this brand or even in the genre of the business, do you feel like you can trust them to go off and create? Because there are so many questions that come up about the products and services themselves, do you feel like you can sort of take that step away, or do you feel like in the first couple months you don't?

19:23 - Anne (Host): I do need to be on top of the matter for the first couple, because I, yes, and that's what I'm finding, is that I do have to say, "No, this isn't quite what I need. Let's make adjustments," and they need to be willing to make adjustments while they get to know. It's a mutual, we need to get to know each other.

19:38 - Lau (Guest): Okay, so I have a question about that. How do you determine—this is a common question of all of our talent and clients—how do you determine how to bank hours according to what you're paying your marketing team to bank hours in order to educate, collaborate, go back and forth? How do you negotiate that with your company, not really knowing how much time they're going to need to figure it out?

20:06 - Anne (Host): Well, honestly, like, no sacrifice, no success, right? I am sacrificing a lot of my hours to do all the checking and then making the corrections and saying, "No, this, not this, this." And so for me, it's a sacrifice, right? It's a sacrifice of my time. I have to make sure I allocate time to be able to do that to educate them. But the better I can educate them right in the beginning, the less time I'm going to have to spend later on. That's the way I feel, and the easier it'll be for them to get to know me. I don't think that there's any lack of content about me out there, so, like there's lots of help if people need to know who is Ann Ganguzza.

20:43 - Lau (Guest): But the question is that a lot of people are going to be wondering is what if they want to hire a marketing team? What if they want to have a marketing consultant, right, working on? How do they know how much that investment will be, not just time but money, how much that investment will be based on the kind of education and back and forth that they will need to do with that team? Even if they're in the industry, they're still going to need to do it.

21:07 - Anne (Host): Yeah, it's probably more than you anticipate. You think that you can just say, "Here, create a graphic," or "Make my website." But there's so much that, again, because we are personal brands out there, right, in this industry. We are personal brands, brands out there, right? In this industry, we are personal brands. There's so much of us that is invested in representation and what we look like, what we sound like, how we're being sold, right? There's so much of us that, if we are not able to educate a team on who we are, right, and how we need to be represented, right, you need to be able to allocate that time. So the way that it's working with my team is that services are rendered. I mean, I don't pay for every version of a graphic. They basically do it until it's right, and that's how that works. I pay a blanket fee.

21:53 - Lau (Guest): Do they give you an amount of hours that they're willing to budget in for the month?

21:55 - Anne (Host): Nope, nope, that's great. There's no, yeah, there's no, not in a contract, let's put it that way. And so that was something that actually it's a really great question, because that was something that I wanted to make sure of. I mean, when we went back, right, "Here's what I need. I need to have this, this, this and this. Are you able to provide that, right, and are you able to provide revisions, right, without additional charges?" There's no charges. I'm paying a retainer fee, and so there are no, at least in the contract. There are not, right. There are not. There is a statement of work. There are timeframes. So if I need this to be done on my website, I should expect it to take this long.

22:40 - Lau (Guest): Right. Now, I have a question about that, Annie. If they're doing socials, which they're engaging in SEO, but also an engagement for you, right? They're doing socials in terms of engagement, they're doing graphics.

22:52 - Anne (Host): They're doing some graphics. They're doing graphics.

22:55 - Lau (Guest): But do they actually go on and engage in your voice?

22:57 - Anne (Host): I'm engaging right now. Okay, the question is, though, for people who need help, they would. They would.

23:02 - Lau (Guest): Well, that's the question I have.

23:03 - Anne (Host): If I wanted them to, they would, but I want to engage with the people as long as I have the time. I want to be able. The initial like impression of me and then if there are comments or questions, I like to engage for now, until there are some questions that they can handle on my behalf. But I don't want to misrepresent or people to think that, "Oh, somebody besides Ann is answering." For the most part, I'm interacting with any engagement that happens. They just need to provide the initial wow for the engagement.

23:37 - Lau (Guest): I got you. I got you.

23:38 - Anne (Host): But they would. They said they would, and I actually... We never actually went into that, because that's not what I'm having them do right now. I'm more concerned with them getting the website SEO going, doing some SEO work. They're doing a lot of SEO work for me, which, again, I wanted to be able to expand my reach and to be found outside of the circle that I was in already.

23:57 - Anne (Host): So that requires a lot of keywords. It requires a lot of going back to content that I've produced, creating new graphics for it, creating new titles, creating new words, you know, new content, new descriptions. And so, for the most part, I am approving all of that, and if it needs to go back to the drawing board, I basically correct it and say, "No, let's do this, let's do that." Again, I'll say, "I would never have said this, right, or I would never say this. This is not the proper terminology for this industry." So that's the one thing is that they don't necessarily know the terminology in the industry, nor do they know like, graphically, like, what microphone should I represent? Like, no, do not put a dynamic microphone.

24:39 - Lau (Guest): So you're doing that kind of team, and it's good for our listeners to just know, like, why are you doing this when you could do it yourself? But the expertise of an ad team like this is not only graphics and graphic design, but it's also how to reach your target markets.

24:57 - Anne (Host): Yes, and a different perspective, Lau. That's the other thing that I want to say is, the biggest benefit of this is it's great to have people in the industry, and I still have people in the industry that are doing work for me, but also having a perspective that's outside of the industry, because, again, I need to get outside of the bubble that I'm in, right? And so how do I do that without a different perspective? Right, I want to attract corporate clients. Right, I want to attract corporate clients for my voiceover. How am I going to do that if they're not in my circles already? Right, how am I going to reach outside?

25:28 - Anne (Host): And so a lot of it was to have somebody that does that for all industries to be able to do that for me, and then also, basically, to give me the perspective, like, so that I don't get in my own way, because I've literally had to say, like, "Do you think you should put my face on that graphic right now?"

25:47 - Anne (Host): "Because doesn't that seem too assuming, you know?" And I get all like, here I am getting in my own way, and they're like, "No, no, no, no, because at this stage of the sales funnel, right, they don't know you yet, and so you need to represent your face in that confident way, blah, blah, blah, blah. Later on down in the sales funnel, when they know you, then you don't have to repeat that." So they're experts in that, and basically there's a lot that I'm learning from them, and they're learning a lot about the industry from me. And we're collaborating, and that's the one thing that I do like is that it's in a very collaborative sort of way, and it wasn't without many interviews, by the way, and what's cool about that is they become...

26:31 - Lau (Guest): Yes, you're educating them about the industry and how they need, and people are going to be seeing and thinking about you that are not esoteric, they're not in the industry, they're people that are in the universe. Corporate people, people who might hire me for a voiceover. Yeah, I just want to say, though, that that is a perspective that we all lose along the way.

26:53 - Anne (Host): We do.

26:54 - Lau (Guest): Because we get so involved in the audience that we're currently with, we think everyone is like that. Everyone sees it that way, when really it can be quite opposite to that, that they see you as something totally different than what you think they're seeing you as.

27:07 - Anne (Host): Yeah, and that was the biggest education for me and the biggest takeaway is that it's a growth experience.

27:15 - Anne (Host): Growth is not always fun. Growth is not always fun, growth is not always easy, but growth is to me a sign of moving ahead and moving forward. And so, as long as I can accept that, and I can accept the beatings along the way and the discomfort, and the discomfort, you know, you've got your triumphs and celebrations and exciting moments, but you also have, yeah, you got to work that out.

27:37 - Anne (Host): Work out my stress, work out my stress. I love it. But it's all good, guys, and bosses. I guess this whole discussion today was like really small steps can really mean large growth for you in the long term. And for me, it was a bunch of tiny steps in my head, and then it was just kind of a leap of faith, right, once I said, "What's the worst that could happen?"

27:57 - Anne (Host): Right, I have accepted the worst thing that could happen. And I remember that's so funny, Lau, because in the beginning of time, I feel like in the beginning of time when I graduated college, right, a thousand years ago, a thousand years ago, when I graduated college and I was trying to determine whether I should accept a job in New Jersey, right? Should I move my young butt to New Jersey in a place that I didn't know anybody, all by myself, right, and work for this company? And I said, "You know what? It's scary, but I'll give it a year, and if it doesn't work out in a year, guess what? I can move home." The worst thing is, I don't like it and I move home.

28:31 - Anne (Host): So I did the same thing with my business, and I'll tell you what, Lau, it really puts things in perspective. I said, "Okay, I have a certain amount of money that I can lose, that I'm going to invest, I can lose it, and I'm okay with that, as long as I grow along the way. And if I grow along the way, I have such an education." To me, I'm like, "This is great, now I can move forward."

28:50 - Lau (Guest): I'm with you, totally, I'm with you. Now, one more question: To the people who are not leveling up quite in that way. Maybe they're in an early stage, earlier stage. They say, "I need this, I love this, and I want this, but I don't know if I have the extra money, I don't know if I have the extra capital for this." What do you say to those people that are a little bit tighter on budget, a little bit more worried about paying the rent, a little bit earlier in the game, or maybe they're not, maybe they've been in it for 10, 15 years, but they're still worried about the tight purse strings? What do you say about that?

29:21 - Anne (Host): Well, okay. So tight purse strings are one thing, right? I mean, you either do what you have to do to get the money. You put it in savings, you save for as long, earn it.

29:29 - Lau (Guest): Yeah, you work at Dunkin' Donuts. You know what I mean? Beg, borrow, steal it, as we used to say. Make me my iced coffee at Dunkin' Donuts.

29:35 - Anne (Host): You do whatever you do and you put it away, and then you say, "I've got this amount of money to invest."

29:40 - Lau (Guest): That's if you actually need the cash, right? Yeah.

29:42 - Anne (Host): And if it's not just cash and you just don't want to work, do you know what I mean? Like educate yourself. Like spend the money, invest the money in yourself. If you don't have money, it's time.

29:55 - Lau (Guest): Right. Beg, borrow, steal, right? Don't. I think you're also saying one really important work ethic thing that's a bottom line too, is you got to work harder?

30:00 - Anne (Host): Not only smarter.

30:02 - Lau (Guest): You got to work harder. I don't know why people threw that out the window. "Work smarter, not harder." Well, you kind of have to do both.

30:09 - Anne (Host): You have to do both. You have to work hard and work smart, right? Yeah, you do, and that's actually, I love that you said that. You really do. I mean, people know that I work. I mean, I'm just, I'm working extra hours right now.

30:19 - Lau (Guest): I'm not calling you a slob, but you're a grinder. You know what I mean? You are a grinder.

30:24 - Anne (Host): I always have been, but more so than I really want to. But my ultimate goal is so that I'm not going to have to work so hard in the future. Right? And again, if I were stagnant, right, and I just got kind of complacent, then that's almost worse.

30:37 - Lau (Guest): Yeah, but I know you. I know you. I don't think you're ever going to retire. You're not the type. You'll be on the phone at 98 going, "Wait a second, are you saying this?" I mean, you do have too much love and passion for everything that you're doing, and you know that's what really drives us at the end of the day. It's fun, there's got to be a fun factor.

30:55 - Anne (Host): Well, I think it's like a game. It's a game I play, you know, in a way.

30:59 - Lau (Guest): I mean, there's strategy, you want to win. Exactly, it's a very creative game for me.

31:05 - Anne (Host): So I think that, bosses, we all have to play that creative game. We all have to not just want to win at our performance and be in the booth and do a great job, but also win at our businesses and play the game. I mean, play the game. It's not a bad game to play, it's a fun game if you allow it to be, right, even though I'm telling you, I have discomfort, I'm stressed, but I enjoy the journey.

31:27 - Lau (Guest): I enjoy the journey. And remember what makes it successful, Annie, is that you're the designer of the game. Yes, you get to not only play the game, you get to design it. So don't lose out on the design element. That's the beautiful thing about it, right?

31:37 - Anne (Host): We're designing our own game.

31:39 - Lau (Guest): Our businesses are similar in the industry, but they couldn't be more different in the way they're designed and executed, and that's the beauty of what we do as creatives. Is that, and any industry that you run your own business, no two restaurants are really the same.

31:53 - Announcer: There's different designers.

31:55 - Lau (Guest): So have fun with that.

32:02 - Anne (Host): So guys, do the work, do the work, Make the small changes.

32:04 - Anne (Host): Yeah, Lau it's been amazing. Thank you so much for all your love and encouragement too. You are a big part of my team and I love having encouragement that does help, because you don't feel so all alone and I'm not also like, oh my God, am I doing the right thing? So yeah, guys, I'm going to give a great big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You, too, can connect and network like bosses, like Lau and myself. Find out more at IPDTLcom Bosses. Have an amazing week and let's go build those muscles. All right, bye, bye.

32:33 - Announcer: Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, Anne Ganguzza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via1 IPDTL.