Ep. 65 The Stern Truth: When and How to Grow Your Team with Tedi Bezna

Tedi Bezna is the proud owner of an all-woman marketing agency. Searchlight Digital specializes in SEO, Google Ads, website content, anything to get you searched. She’s had Searchlight for eight years and counting and is still growing.

Like many of our guests, Tedi was raised by entrepreneurs. That feeling of doing something for herself inspired her from a young age—she even sold plums from her backyard tree as one of her first business ventures.

A self-professed lover of the “nerdy” stuff, Tedi gravitated towards spreadsheets and numbers and eventually went into SEO. Tedi says it’s an amazing marriage of the numbers, the data, and the storytelling that creates something that connects with people.

Tedi also saw some downsides of working for someone else, which led her to start her own business (who hasn’t been there, right?). She was inspired by reading Dan Martell’s “Buy Back Your Time,” which inspired her to hire an admin assistant. As a business owner who wants to scale, you need to get a team behind you, and you need to let go.

Her team is something Tedi expresses a lot of gratitude for. Because she took risks and hired capable people that she trusts, that was exactly how she was able to make Searchlight Digital successful.

One of her most potent golden nuggets was the many ways she stays connected to other business owners, from Masterminds to a Slack group to just talking with her entrepreneur father. Tedi says it’s interesting to see the commonalities, as well as the areas of focus, that people from different businesses deal with.

The list of golden nuggets in this episode is almost endless. Hire strategically. Have a financial buffer available. SOPs set people up to succeed. Hire a bookkeeper, an accountant, a CFO, someone to handle the finances. You never outgrow personal growth. Seriously, I’m missing some, so go listen to the episode.

Connect with Tedi here:
Website - www.searchlightmarketing.ca
Instagram - @searchlightdigital

Dan Martell’s “Buy Back Your Time” - https://www.buybackyourtime.com/

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I encourage you to reach out with feedback, topic suggestions, and share your own entrepreneurial challenges.

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Email: marshall@marshallstern.net

Transcript

[00:00:00] Marshall Stern: So I always get the question about when is it time to hire? How do we grow our business? How do we scale our business? Well, my friends, you're going to find out today, we sit down with an amazing entrepreneur who has built an amazing marketing agency. She has a great engaged team around her. She's done it the right way, the way I always talk about here on the Stern Truth.

[00:00:25] She has become an amazing leader for her team, for her clients, for her family. And here's the other thing. I always suggest you grab a pad of paper and pen. You know what, I'm changing it. Today, I want you to grab a pad of paper that's legal size, my friends, because Tedi Bezna of Searchlight Digital gives us golden nuggets after golden nuggets, after golden nuggets.

[00:00:50] And some Stern Truths in there. You are not going to want to miss this episode. Enjoy.

[00:01:02] Hi, I'm Marshall Stern and I've spent over 35 years leading and growing multiple small businesses. I know firsthand the struggles of entrepreneurship, feeling isolated, lonely, overwhelmed, and feeling like you have to do it all by yourself. I've been through multiple recessions, and I have felt the highs and the lows.

[00:01:21] I've been there, and I get it. This podcast is here to change that. Every week I will bring you straight talking advice, real-world strategies, and honest conversations about what it takes to succeed in business without the fluff, the gimmicks, or the sugar-coated. If you're ready to stop spinning your wheels and start making real progress, then you are in the right place.

[00:01:45] This is the Stern Truth. 

[00:01:49] Marshall Stern: Welcome back everyone, to another episode of the Stern Truth Business Unfiltered. And my friends, I'd like to introduce you to Tedi Bezna. 

[00:01:59] Tedi Bezna: Yes. Thank you so much for having me. 

[00:02:01] Marshall Stern: Searchlight, Searchlight Digital. Correct. 

[00:02:05] Tedi Bezna: Yes. 

[00:02:06] Marshall Stern: I've been looking forward to this. Okay, let's be honest, let's, this is the Stern Truth Business Unfiltered.

[00:02:10] We did this already a few weeks back and it didn't work out. The audio didn't work out. So we're re-recording and I'm telling you everyone, so I know ahead of time, she shares so many golden nuggets, Stern Truths. She's awesome. But I'm going to just start from scratch and pretend it didn't happen. But it did happen.

[00:02:27] But we're doing it again. 

[00:02:29] Tedi Bezna: I could talk about it endlessly. I don't mind. 

[00:02:32] Marshall Stern: Well, I'm curious to see how this one turns out compared to the other one, because the other one had many – so it's no pressure. So many, so many, not just on the marketing side. So I know you, why don’t you tell us, tell us a little bit about yourself.

[00:02:44] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. Absolutely. So I'm Tedi Bezna, founder of Searchlight Digital. We're an all-women, all Canadian search marketing agency. So we specialize in SEO, Google Ads, website content, basically whatever it takes to help you get found in search. So that's what I do in my day to day. 

[00:03:04] Marshall Stern: And what's, you have a team behind you, correct?

[00:03:06] Tedi Bezna: I do, yes. Yeah. Yeah. So we're at, actually this week we're hiring a new person. But currently we're at a team of 12, and again, it was really important to me from, to me from the start to have specifically an all Canadian team. It's worked out, you know, in our industry, women are underrepresented. So it was great to also have that, you know, place where people can come and really thrive in an area that. Sometimes doesn't have the, the infrastructure, the setup to support them. So.

[00:03:41] It's been, yeah, a really exciting journey. We just hit eight years in January, so it's been a journey to get to where we are today but started as a solo founder and then grew the team to where we are in the capacity we have now.

[00:03:50] Marshall Stern: So I'm curious, so you started as solo, you as a solo founder. How did – let's talk about your journey. How did you get into this and how, and why did you grow your team and the, well, obviously the business you want to grow, but the team? Because a lot of people just say, stay solo. 

[00:04:05] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. Well, you know, I think I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit.

[00:04:10] I was raised by entrepreneurs, multiple generations of small business owners. When I was a child, I was, you know, selling the plums from the tree in my backyard on the side of the road. I was making wasp traps at the campgrounds that we stayed in. So I always had the sort of spirit of wanting to do something for myself.

[00:04:29] And so my educational background is in business and marketing, and I began my career at a startup where I was working with these really inspiring and visionary women who were very creative, very visually focused, had, you know, this amazing eye. But there was definitely room for someone to come in who took more of a handle on the data, the analytics, the backend kind of nerdy stuff that can sometimes get in the way of that creative visionary approach.

[00:04:59] And I had always really loved spreadsheets and finance and numbers and stuff like that. So I sort of saw that as my opportunity to really grow my skillset and find something that I loved. And I found that SEO in particular was this really amazing marriage of the numbers, the data, but also storytelling and writing and making sure that you're creating something that connects with people and that, you know, allows them to find the answers that they're looking for.

[00:05:26] So I was very drawn into SEO paid ads. I managed, you know, Facebook and Meta ads, things like that.  But after a couple years of being in-house, I realized that I wanted to share this knowledge and this information with a bunch of businesses. Again, growing up with small business owners, I knew how valuable and what an impact this could make.

[00:05:47] But I also knew by working in house and working alongside agencies, that there were a lot of bad actors in the space. There were people who were not, you know, doing their work with integrity, top of mind, or transparency, A lot of the jargon and scare tactics and. I knew that in particular, small businesses were going to be the most vulnerable to this type of marketing or to, you know, being taken advantage of.

[00:06:11] And so I knew that I wanted to do something for myself. I had this skillset that I knew I could help other people with, and so I transitioned into a more stable kind of government role so that I could. Work hard during the day, but have my evenings, have my weekends and my flex days. And I started kind of freelancing, picking up a couple clients, and I sort of joke that I Frankenstein-ed the team together over time.

[00:06:37] As you know, life got busier as more people. I wanted to help more people.  I brought in, you know, a marketing coordinator, a writer, and then all of a sudden, you know, specifically during the pandemic things really picked up. It was the same time that I had my, both my children.  and so I just needed extra hands on deck and I knew that I wanted this to be bigger.

[00:06:59] I wanted to continue serving people. I wanted to create opportunity for people to have jobs where they're doing the thing that they love doing. And so that's, you know, a huge source of pride for me in my team is creating that, that environment and that opportunity. 

[00:07:16] But yeah, building it so that we can help more people, support more people and create sort of a micro economy around ourselves where we're supporting business, our end clients to grow their businesses and,  yeah, create something really special. So I've always had big goals and aspirations. 

[00:07:33] Marshall Stern: I love that. Because, I mean, a lot of, a lot of,  business owners and entrepreneurs have aspirations. They have big goals, but a lot of them get stuck and they don't – and they get stuck.

[00:07:43] And I've noticed just in my, some people I coach, I end up coaching or just I meet in the Facebook groups I run and the, the group programs I run, there are a lot of them who get stuck as the solopreneur. And, and there's nothing wrong with that if that's what they want. However, if you want to grow, you want to scale, it's two different things.

[00:08:02] You do need to build a team, you do need to sort of let go a bit of that. Tell us a little bit more about, because you went from the solo to now a team of 12, soon to be a team of 13. 

[00:08:15] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:08:15] Marshall Stern: How did you notice time, but also how, how were you able to take that leap of faith and let, also, financially and emotionally, letting go?

[00:08:26] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I think to what you said, like there's nothing wrong with staying as a solo and individual. I think sometimes the advice to like, well just grow a team, just hire someone, is, is give it a little too flippantly because it is a massive undertaking and it shifts your own role. It shifts what your, how you participate in your own business.

[00:08:48] So I, I say this with the understanding that it, it is an undertaking and there's risk and there's all sorts of things, but the reward of that is also exceptional if that is what you're looking for. So, yeah, so the, the way that I realized that I needed to start letting go and bringing other people in for myself was often when.

[00:09:12] It started to impact clients. So, you know, when I first started freelancing and I only had four clients, it was really easy to answer everybody's emails within 24 hours within the same day. But all of a sudden, as more started coming in and I was managing new people and our current clients, all of a sudden, you know, days or even a week would go by and I'd say, well, now it's starting to impact the experience that my clients are having.

[00:09:35] And, personally, I can't allow that. So I was starting to look for those places where other people could step in, and, you know, there is the advice which is, is so true is that, you know, 80% of the way by someone else is better than a hundred percent by you. Because at least it's getting done.

[00:09:54] And, you know, when I first started, like I was the absolute definition of white knuckling. I mean, I used to create each of my invoices in Canva and I would, like, hand design the invoices, and I thought that that was like a really important part of my client experience and having these realizations of.

[00:10:16] Well, that's not what my clients come to me for. I can get an accounting software that can send this invoice out for me. You know, I can have another person who is a full-time writer write this blog post. It does not have to be me. And, and it was a slow progression, but it was a series of holding tight to something, thinking it could, I could never let that thing go.

[00:10:39] Hitting that breaking point, letting go of it, allowing someone else to step in and say, well, this next thing I could never possibly let go of it. So some really big leaps for me was around client communication, bringing in a client account manager instead of people. Communicating exclusively through me.

[00:10:55] That was a really tough one. I mean, I, you know, I, I'm so grateful for the patience of my first client account manager, who I, I had her signing as my name for the first couple weeks that she was there because I said, oh, you know what, if they're upset that it's not me. And she was like, I think it's going to be okay.

[00:11:12] I think they're going to understand. And it was like a total non-issue and has been totally fine. You know, being in every single client call now, my team takes those and they do a way better job than I ever could because they're in it every day. So, hitting up against those points where I knew it was going to impact the client experience was an external motivator of, I, I need to bring someone else on to maintain the standard that I hold myself and searchlight to.

[00:11:41] And I'm so lucky, I have an incredible team of. Really smart, capable people. And I think trusting that other people can be as smart and capable and dedicated as we are to our business, opening yourself up emotionally to that is huge. There is also, of course, the financial side that is nothing to account for and plan for.

[00:12:04] There's lots of different sort of phases and stages to that of making sure that you're pricing yourself appropriately. I had to adjust, you know what I was charging my hourly rate when it was just me versus when I was bringing people on. But we were able to create an experience to match, so we were also increasing the value, not just the pricing.

[00:12:23] I also recommend, and this is again more of like a behind the scenes nerdy accounting thing, having a buffer, having, you know, cash in your accounts to be able to ride the wave so that you're not having to hire and fire rapidly based off of one client, you know, not paying or you know, someone dropping off or a new person joining.

[00:12:43] Having that buffer room is such a relief and you're able to make much better, more strategic decisions when you're not hand to mouth. That's, again, easy to say, but really important to be able to implement. And I think a missing piece that a lot of people have when they're bringing on team members is they'll bring people on and they expect that person to have the knowledge that they have accumulated in their mind of how things should be done and what the right way is of doing whatever it is that they do.

[00:13:12] Without having the documentation, the processes, the SOP in place to set that person up to succeed. I mean, my first couple starts at hiring, you know, an admin assistant. I just brought them in and said, okay, just to handle it. Just do it. And of course, I'm not going to be happy with the work that they're doing because they don't know what success looks like for me.

[00:13:30] They don't have a process that, you know, I can hand them off how I like. My inbox to be managed or whatever that might be. So taking the time for yourself and for your future team members to create SOPs, create documentation so that they have what they need to succeed. Those are all huge aspects to, to the success of growing that team long term.

[00:13:51] Marshall Stern: Wow. Okay. So I, I like to have one, at least one gold nugget. You just like, you just like one after another, after another. Like, okay. Okay. So, so, SOPs. Important. Financial buffer. Huge. 

[00:14:07] Tedi Bezna: Huge. 

[00:14:07] Marshall Stern: And, and what you said about the financial buffer having some money in the bank. Having some money, they call it the rainy day fund, just in case, is totally is more important than I think people really realize, and I know this from experience because I know, and I – I know a lot of people unfortunately, and I was one of them when I had my signed company early on, I used to judge my business success by my bank account.

[00:14:28] It's like, oh, we're good. We have $20,000 in the bank. We're good. 

[00:14:33] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:14:34] Marshall Stern: What you don't think about is, oh, I have payroll coming out. I have 10 people to feed. I've got GST, PST. Rent, right? All this stuff. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh no. 

[00:14:45] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:14:46] Marshall Stern: So I always like, don't, if you're, if you guys are watching or listening, hear what Tedi's saying, and I, I'm just going to reiterate it, like, do not ever, ever judge your business success at any point in time by what you have in the bank. Either way. 

[00:15:03] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. Yeah. Projections are huge. Being able to look at your annual, because again, those things creep up on you, the GSTs, all of these, yeah, are, are easy to miss. My, my favorite people that I hire are my CFOs, my accountant. My bookkeepers make sure that everything is on track and above board.

[00:15:21] Because that is mission critical, knowing your own numbers and knowing the behind the scenes, it's massive. 

[00:15:26] Marshall Stern: Yeah. Yeah. And because like you said, not just the, not just those automatic withdrawals that are coming out that I mentioned, but like you said, client doesn't pay here like ever. Period. Yeah. Or they pay late.

[00:15:39] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:15:39] Marshall Stern: Okay. Or you lose a client. 

[00:15:43] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:15:43] Marshall Stern: Okay. Same thing happens because you're not getting paid. So these are things that you don't expect, but we need to, as business owners, we do need to expect that these things are going to happen and when we're constantly living, you know. Even though we own a business, paycheck to paycheck, payroll, or as an owner payroll to payroll, it's hard to think strategically and creatively because you're just thinking about, I got to make payroll.

[00:16:06] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:16:07] Marshall Stern: I have to make rent. 

[00:16:08] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:16:09] Marshall Stern: Right. 

[00:16:10] Tedi Bezna: And the risk there, I've found almost more than anything is that when you make decisions because you're like, we need to make payroll, that's where you start to get. Clients that don't respect, or that you know are not the right fit, keeping a team member. because you need some, you know, because you need a body versus finding people who are truly the right fit.

[00:16:31] One of the biggest shifts we've been able to make is the ability to say no to the right things or to, I should say, the wrong things.  because. When you have that financial buffer, you're then able to say, this isn't worth the money. You know, where the, to the mental anguishes will cause my team, or, you know, the, the stressful late nights, this isn't worth the money because I know that.

[00:16:54] Payroll is covered that we're good. So I'm able to protect my culture and my team and the morale, which you almost can't quantify. So you're able to really trust in yourself and make decisions that are ultimately the most right and the most aligned because you're not thinking, well, I got to, we'll take any project just because we have to make payroll.

[00:17:15] So it's, it's a much more empowering place to run your business from. 

[00:17:19] Marshall Stern: Yeah, no. A hundred, a hundred percent, a hundred percent agree.  and when to hire, you mentioned, so I work with a lot of people. Who might be, either they're solo or they have one person, or maybe five, but they're just, especially the ones that are like on their own.

[00:17:33] Tedi Bezna: Mm-hmm. 

[00:17:34] Marshall Stern: They don't know when to hire. So for you, when did you know, and you talked about like when you were a little late in emails or client work, was there a specific time where you knew for sure I have to hire my first person? 

[00:17:49] Tedi Bezna: Yeah, I mean there, there've been a couple moments like that in varying ways, whether it's, you know, bringing on a contractor that can - felt a little risky or bringing on ultimately full-time employees, which is like a totally different for me mindset.

[00:18:02] Like that's been the biggest, like mindset shift is bringing on actual full-time employees. But, you know, some of it came down to, like I sort of briefly mentioned, I had my children in 2020 and 2021. That is a real curve ball of life where you don't know how that's going to impact you or what your life is going to look like after that, and I knew I needed that continuity planning of someone has to be there to keep the wheels turning.

[00:18:28] Even if I need to step away entirely, I need someone who's going to be able to continue some of the decisions. Also from going to contractor to full-time also came down to the level of involvement and time and intention that I needed from people. So when we had, you know, a client account manager previously, we had a couple people who were contractors and they either had, you know, multiple other agencies they were working with or they had full-time jobs and they were kind of doing this on the side.

[00:18:55] We started to hit this point of like, well, if a client wants a call at 10:00 AM on a Tuesday, we got to have someone here. You know? We have to make sure that we have that availability, that someone's whole mind is dedicated just to serving our clients and giving them an amazing experience. Again, came back to what are the standards that we hold ourselves to?

[00:19:16] Because it sounds cliche in some ways, but there's certain things where it's like, well, can you afford not to? Is your business able to even continue without having this person in this role? You know, right now one of the people that we're hiring, you know, it's because we need it, but it's also about risk management.

[00:19:34] We have two client account managers and if something were to happen, if someone was to win the lottery and not need to work with us anymore. We need to make sure that we have those hands on deck. So risk on both sides is sometimes a part of it. Is the risk of not growing or not being able to maintain your current standards or your current levels of service?

[00:19:54] The risk of making sure that there's multiple hands on deck so people don't burn out or, you know, you don't lose valuable team members. There's a lot of different ways that we've gone about that. But again, anywhere that we can mitigate certain levels of risk, we're big fans of contract to full-time.

[00:20:12] So starting someone as a contractor, I think it was, you know, Dan Martell who said, I can't work with you till I've worked with you. So, you know, we, instead of, obviously we, you know, we interview, we go through a rigorous process, but seeing someone in action before making a further, you know, commitment on both ends, making sure it's a good fit.

[00:20:30] That's been a really great segue to be able to manage and, and make sure that people are a right fit. So there's a lot of options, but it, for me, has always come back to how can we make sure to continue serving our clients in a really excellent way. 

[00:20:45] Marshall Stern: Okay, so let's talk, let's get down to the, like, the stern truth here.

[00:20:49] Okay. So you seem to have it pretty figured it out. Like, I know there's always something, but you're like, you're on top of it all. You come from a big part of it, correct me if I'm wrong, is growing up in an entrepreneurial space. 

[00:21:02] Tedi Bezna: Totally. 

[00:21:03] Marshall Stern: Okay, so I, same, I'm the same as you. A lot of people aren't, but, still, it's your, this is your baby. Now you've got two others as well. You have two kids. Do you have two kids or do you – 

[00:21:12] Tedi Bezna: Yeah, two girls. 

[00:21:14] Marshall Stern: Oh, wow. 

[00:21:15] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:21:15] Marshall Stern: Wow. I'm good. I'm sweating. Just like I, I, so, yeah. Yeah, there – that's, that's awesome. No, girls are great, girls. That's amazing. Boys are great too. Teenagers are different though. Boys are – 

[00:21:28] Tedi Bezna: I'm bracing, I feel like I already have teenagers. 

[00:21:30] Marshall Stern: Just wait, you don't! Okay. How - for you, because you're juggling, and I'm assuming you have support at home as well. 

[00:21:40] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:21:40] Marshall Stern: So I'll ask you that first. Do you have support on the, on the home front? 

[00:21:45] Tedi Bezna: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, me being able to do what I do is a whole family team effort. We're exceptionally lucky.

[00:21:55] We have both, you know, my in-laws, my parents, my mom was a former ECE, former, former early childhood educator. Retired right at the pandemic. I always joke that she was sort of there with the catcher's mitt, I had my kid and I'm like, I got to get back to work. And she was like, great, hand her over.

[00:22:13] I'll, I'll take over from here. So our whole family prioritized me being able to do this because they saw how important it was to me with the potential and the opportunity was there. You know, my husband's mother is a very strong, capable leader in her own right. So he is used to, that's a big part of, you know, his upbringing is, you know, supporting women in, in, you know, following their dreams and their ambitions.

[00:22:39] And so my husband is, you know, really amazing. Like, to say that he's an equal or a capable parent and partner would be the understatement of a lifetime. You, you know, really takes on so much. 

[00:22:50] But we also have, like, cleaning ladies who come every other week. For a long time we did stuff like HelloFresh.

[00:22:57] I order my groceries to my house, so it doesn't always have to be a person. Sometimes it's just a service, but as with the work life, it's allowing people to help you. I think I've really, again, seen it as a communal effort of, you know, if people are willing to step in and help. I'm also flexible in, like, how that gets done.

[00:23:17] I'm not going to nitpick and, you know, be super particular about things when, like, someone's coming in and doing me a really big solid and that we're all working on this together. So the behind the scenes support is absolutely critical to being able to show up. Where you are and be present and know that,  everything is taken care of around you so that you can put your effort and energy into where you need to be at that moment.

[00:23:41] Marshall Stern: Okay. So that's the, that's, that's awesome. And, so that's the home front. You've got the home front taken care of. I mean, I know, I know there's like, like anything else, but you have that, you have support, which is awesome. 

[00:23:52] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:23:52] Marshall Stern: What about on the business side? Now you grew up in an entrepreneurial family.

[00:23:57] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:23:57] Marshall Stern: So you have probably a little bit of support there and guides there, but how have you been able to grow your own agency? What, what tools do you use or, or mentors have you had that have actually been there and saod, yeah, I can help you through this, I can walk you through it. Or accountability groups, masterminds, I'm curious to hear.

[00:24:18] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, my, my dad definitely loves talking with me about the business. So he owned pet stores for over 20 years, so two very different business types, but it's still really interesting because again, once you have employees, your role is no manager. And so there's certain things that are, you know, really universal.

[00:24:36] But, you know, he's been a really great support.  again, being based, I'm in Victoria, but the community of women marketers and, you know, agency owners in BC in particular is an incredible, tight-knit community. I've met people through, you know, events in masterminds in Vancouver that, you know, I now virtually have, you know, strong relationships with.

[00:24:58] I'm a part of a really amazing Slack group, the Female Agency Owner Slack group that is a really honest, safe space where people can come and say, like, hey, here's what's really going on. Has anyone else seen this? And everyone really steps up to support.  I've been a part of agency specific kind of masterminds and groups in the past.

[00:25:20] I'm in a, an CEO accelerator right now that focuses a lot on, like, leadership development because I, you know, I started my career as, like a, you know, a junior as, as you do. And I never had, like, management experience. I didn't go from junior to senior to manager to director, you know, having that traditional. 

[00:25:40] So I kind of went from the bottom to now being the boss. And so having that kind of support has been hugely helpful. But, yeah, other people who are willing to be vulnerable and honest because it is hard and it's really challenging when you are the one at the top and there's certain things that you can't share.  I recently heard the phrase emotional contagion, and I had never heard that before, but it really resonated that if you are stressed and panicked or angry or whatever that might be.

[00:26:10] That now spreads to everyone around you. And so when you know we have a client who doesn't pay or something going wrong, I cannot, my emotional contagion has to be that of being in control and calm and collected and steering the ship. But that can be really hard to do on your own. So having that support is really helpful in knowing you're not alone.

[00:26:32] Marshall Stern: No, that I love that. I love having the support. So you talk a lot about, because I work with other agency owners, I work with people in bookkeeping, different, different industries, and sometimes I get the, the question asked like when they're coming to me for coaching or some, whether it's one-on-one or my group programs, should I go industry specific?

[00:26:51] And I always go back to my experience when I had my signing graphics company and I was part of both industry specific and non, like, more general. 

[00:27:00] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:27:02] Marshall Stern: Really, it depends, I think, where you're on, in your evolution of your business. I think both have its place. 

[00:27:07] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:27:08] Marshall Stern: The industry specific, I always say, it's great depending on who the industry, the members are in that group.

[00:27:14] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:27:14] Marshall Stern: And it's good that you're in, part of the Slack group and different groups where they're able to be open and transparent because some are not. Right. It also depends on the, where they're at in their business. because you always want to be. Especially in an industry-specific - I would imagine you want to be with agency owners who are like a step further, right?

[00:27:35] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:27:35] Marshall Stern: So you can learn from them rather than you mentoring. I mean, which is nice too, to mentor. 

[00:27:41] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:27:42] Marshall Stern: But if you want to grow, right? 

[00:27:44] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. But getting the different insight from other people is also so helpful because you never know the behind the scenes of how people are, again, running their businesses and some things are so universal and I have, you know, friends who are running different types of businesses and yet, you know, I'll say, oh, you know, we ran into this issue.

[00:28:03] And they'll say, I ran into the exact same thing. So even different, you know, business, you know, areas of focus. There are still some of those commonalities. Yeah, and my current group that I'm, I'm going through, it's very international. There's CEOs of all ranges, and I'm in rooms with people who are running like $50 million companies and these really big, you know, thousand employees.

[00:28:25] But I find it really reassuring in some ways that, when we speak to each other, we're all actually dealing with very similar issues. It's just on different kind of levels or scales, and it really does bring back the sort of wherever you go, there you are. And I think that there's definitely the nuts and bolts that are important to learn of.

[00:28:44] You know, how the mechanics of running your business, but you know, you never outgrow personal growth. You never hit a, a, you know, point where you're like, I'm fully involved, I know everything. Nothing to, you know, work upon entrepreneurship is the ultimate in, you know, character building and refinement, constant opportunities to grow and learn about yourself.

[00:29:06] Marshall Stern: No, a hundred percent. And that's what, like, so we do something similar in the ONtrepreneurial Inner Circle, which just began a little while ago. And it's like, not industry specific. We have people from all over, majority B2B, but there are some, B2C, like, you know, we have a, a renovation company or a home builder.

[00:29:22] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:29:22] Marshall Stern: And, but he actually has so many insights for the people like us, like the B2B people that, because he's seeing it from a different lens 

[00:29:31] Tedi Bezna: Totally. Yeah. 

[00:29:32] Marshall Stern: Right. And it's like, why don't you, he's, he'll suggest, why don't you do this? Or to one of our members, why don't you do that? This is how I respond to my clients.

[00:29:39] Because in the end, people are people. 

[00:29:42] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:29:43] Marshall Stern: Right. And he has employees just like the other people have employees. It's just, it's a different industry, different market. But as you said, most of the businesses, like, business is business. 

[00:29:52] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:29:53] Marshall Stern: And leadership is leadership. Okay. So you've shared a lot. Before we wrap up, I would, what is, and you kind of talked a lot about them, but maybe, okay, let's go.

[00:30:05] It's one of my favorite questions. Well, I, I'll ask this question. What would you say if you knew then, eight years ago… 

[00:30:11] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:30:12] Marshall Stern: To what you know now, what would you tell the younger Tedi about what to look out for or what to do differently, if anything? 

[00:30:20] Tedi Bezna: Yeah, I mean, I think a lot, a lot of what you can save yourself, the heartache down the road is a little bit of start, as you mean to go. So build things now that maybe you don't think, you think, oh, I don't need SOPs because I'm just myself. 

[00:30:36] Start it early. Start it and create those foundations that you can then build off of because you're going to save yourself a lot of headache down the road.  by having that infrastructure.

[00:30:48] I would say, listen to your gut. Listen to when, when alarm bells start ringing. When something seems like, oh, I'm sure it's not that big. Oh, it's just a little thing. Trusting yourself and holding true to your values because that is something that's so important as an individual, but it's even more critical when you have a team because you are the embodiment of what you feel is okay or not in your business and how.

[00:31:17] Others treat you and how your team feels about themselves and their work environment. So, really holding onto those values and, and living by that and trusting yourself is really important. 

[00:31:30] Marshall Stern: I – oh, I love that. Okay. I, one more question because you just brought up, I was going to ask something earlier to do with it, but I'm going to ask you.

[00:31:37] How important are values when you are building your team? Okay, so there's clients as well, but for a company, the values that you have for the company, how important are the values that you're hiring for their skill? Okay. When you're hiring, you hire, you can hire for skill, you can hire for character and value.

[00:31:55] Value. How important are values? 

[00:31:57] Tedi Bezna: I, I mean, it's, it's really everything. At the end of the day, it might not feel very important at the beginning. You think, oh, as long as I can have someone who can do a job or can do the task, then it doesn't really matter. But almost every, again, other business owner that I speak to, my own experience.

[00:32:14] It eventually – people often are who they are, and they will show you who they are and it will, if it's not an issue today, it'll be an issue in six months from now and you wish you would've dealt with that day. And it's, it really is one of those, like how you do anything is how you do everything.

[00:32:31]  Having that values alignment. So for us, our three sort of core values are transparency, integrity, and empowerment. And that certainly, you know, is important for our clients and how we, you know, support our clients. But even internally, if my team member was, you know, not letting me know about issues and keeping that private, that's a huge issue.

[00:32:52] If someone is not acting in integrity, I mean that. Puts my, our reputation, our business at a huge amount of risk.  and ultimately you need to work with people. You know, I, I always have said I want to create the company that I want to work at. I, you know, show up every day and work with our team. Other people are, again, full-time employees or contractors.

[00:33:13] I want to create an environment where there is not necessarily, you know, a huge homogeny around, like everyone's exactly the same, but that at least we do have those core values where we know that it's an environment of. You know, respect and that we're all playing by the same rule book and that we can trust and create that, the psychological trust, the physical trust between each other, that we're all in this together.

[00:33:35] So it's, it can be overlooked, but it will always be something that will pop up eventually. 

[00:33:41] Marshall Stern: Perfect. Okay. I lied to you. I have one more question. 

[00:33:44] Tedi Bezna: Go for it. 

[00:33:45] Marshall Stern: Okay. Because I love this conversation.  how important, this is more, this is more for you. Okay. I feel like a, a reporter. I'm going to ask you a question.

[00:33:57] This is, this is for you, Tedi. This is for you, front row. Mindset. How important is it to have, I don't want to say a positive mindset, because, like if it's weeds, it's weeds. 

[00:34:10] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:34:10] Marshall Stern: Like, it can't say it's, it's flowers. Like if it's weeds, it's weeds. But, an empowerment or empowering mindset, or I call it a leader's mindset. How is it important? How important is it to work on your mindset every day? 

[00:34:24] Tedi Bezna: Yeah, it's absolutely critical. I mean, you know, I always say that entrepreneurship, running a business, it's a roller coaster, and you have to have the stomach for it because I will. You know, in, in the same breath, I'll, you know, I'll see, you know, an issue that needs to be dealt with.

[00:34:39] And then five emails coming in of new, exciting opportunities and amazing things. And so it's this whiplash of like, here's a fire over here, but here's this amazing thing over here. And. I mean, mentally, if you allow it, it will drain you very quickly. Like it's exhausting to go from, you know, extreme highs, extreme lows, not in, you know, large swoops, but in this daily, up and down moment by moment sometimes.

[00:35:04] So having, I, you know, I think of the mindset that's most important truly as resilience because you, to be able to make it through the days, the weeks, the years, it's, it's something that I've been, you know, constantly working on. But even now. I feel like, you know, given the nature of my business, we work very much in like 30 day sprints.

[00:35:24] We do a lot of ongoing retainers, and so I feel like my world is very, you know, 30 days at a time and then you get to the end of the year and it's like, okay, we made it to the end of the year and now we're starting again January 1st. And so I'm trying to adjust myself to be more of a marathoner versus a sprinter.

[00:35:42] Because it so easy to give these intense bursts of energy to, you know, really give all of your emotional, you know, response to everything that comes in. But working on your own mindset to be able to manage your energy, manage your responses to things. One thing I've been working on a lot is reactivity of like, well I got this email and I read this thing and so, you know, viscerally I'm reacting to it.

[00:36:06] Giving things time, giving things space, not someone else's urgency is not necessarily my urgency and I can help to sort of mitigate that. You know, also having, again, like I like that word around the empowerment because so much of this is a long game and sticking into things and trusting yourself and believing in yourself and having that proof of like, you know what, no, I actually am really good at what I do.

[00:36:31] Or I am a good boss, and I, you know, keeping the folder of, you know, the nice things that people say or getting that reassurance from my team of like. Thank you for handling it this way because that makes me more confident to handle my work. Your, you know, everything starts with you. You are the foundation of your business, and it's something that's motivated me to start, you know, looking after my health a little better because, you know.

[00:36:53] You never get sick or have your body break down at a convenient time. It's always when you at least need it or expect it if I'm, you know, holed up in bed because something went wrong, you know, now all of a sudden I'm, you know, the lurch and, and I know I've, you know, talked about this before, but my, one of my new favorite sayings is that the bottleneck is always at the top of the bottle.

[00:37:14] If my mindset is not right, if I'm not resilient, if I'm not. Consistently showing up and saying to our team, this is okay. We can make it through anything because we have before and we will again, and translating that to the rest of our team, the whole thing starts to crumble. So, you know, as a founder, as a CEO, as a business owner, you being in the good headspace, you know, physical space is mission critical.

[00:37:40] Marshall Stern: Okay. I've got one more question because I love all that. This is just a suggestion from you. I, I'm looking for your suggestions there. A book, or, other than the Stern Truth Podcast, a book or a podcast that you really would recommend to our listeners. 

[00:37:53] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. Dan Martell's “Buy Back Your Time” was transformational for me.

[00:37:58] That was when I really started to address some of my white knuckling. He has some really good systems around who to bring in and at what point and how to support them. So it was a very, you know, straightforward, you know, pretty easy read, but I read it on a vacation and I was sitting by the pool reading this book, and, it, you know, inspired me to hire an admin assistant.

[00:38:21] I then put it out on my personal Facebook, hey, looking for some admin support, you know, maybe five hours a week. That person that I ended up hiring is now my right hand person who is totally critical to, of our business, who has helped me in so many ways that, you know, when I'm in those rooms talking with CEOs who are running 40, $50 million companies.

[00:38:41] I said, I wish I had someone like that. So, it, it really changed my mindset and shifted to see the value in building a team and making a really realistic plan for how to go about that. So, yeah. 

[00:38:53] Marshall Stern: No, that's awesome. Dan Martell “Buy Back Your Time.” I might even put that into the show notes.

[00:38:56] I also recommend for our listeners, I've mentioned this before, other than Emyth, which is, like, I still think the bible for small business owners. 

[00:39:02] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:39:03] Marshall Stern: WTF. It's another really good one if you, the Brian Scudamore. 

[00:39:07] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. I'll have to read that one. 

[00:39:08] Marshall Stern: Oh, Willing to Fail. And it's all but the 1-800, how he built 1-800, I think you'd really enjoy it.

[00:39:14] You're doing, you're doing it. But it's all about leadership and how he built his team and the mistakes he made and, that he would've never been, like, 1-800 and, and what is, oh two?  What's it called? It’s the - the mother company? It wouldn't be where it is because he owned multiple companies.

[00:39:31] It wouldn't be anywhere where it is today if it wasn't for his team. 

[00:39:35] Tedi Bezna: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. 

[00:39:37] Marshall Stern: So that's another really, really good one. Tedi, I, I have no, I, I don't know what else to say because you've said it all. You've - gang. I, I'm sorry. Like, I, I always suggest at the beginning, you know, in the beginning, in the pre part, pre intro of the podcast to grab a pad of paper and pen.

[00:39:52] I hope it was a legal size pad of paper. Because seriously, I might have, I'm going to change the intro for this one. Because this is seriously filled with like – I'm not going to go over them all again. Like, SOPs, financial buffer, when to hire mindset leadership, everything, so much. There's like so much more you said and, surrounding yourselves with, with people who are, you know, I always say, you know, one of, I got it from one of my coaches.

[00:40:18] If you're, if you're the most important person in the room, no, sorry. If you're the smartest, not most important, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. 

[00:40:27] Tedi Bezna: Yeah. 

[00:40:28] Marshall Stern: And so surround yourself with people who are maybe one step ahead of you. Surround yourself with people who get it.

[00:40:34] Surround yourself with people who, like, build a team, build a team, employees, contractors, but also, your inner circle overall. So thank you. Thank you so much. 

[00:40:45] Tedi Bezna: My pleasure. My pleasure. 

[00:40:47] Marshall Stern: Sharing all your amazingness and what's the – I'm going to put all your stuff in the show notes, but Searchlight, Searchlight Digital dot?

[00:40:54] Tedi Bezna: Searchlight. Yeah. Searchlight Digital on Instagram. Searchlight marketing.ca. Marketing website. Yeah. 

[00:41:01] Marshall Stern: Okay. Thank you. I'm going to have to have you back at some point to talk, actually give us some marketing tips and strategies because I know I'm going to get questions on that. 

[00:41:09] Tedi Bezna: Yes, happy to dive in. 

[00:41:11] Marshall Stern: Okay. Awesome gang. Reach out to her, follow her, all that kind of stuff.

[00:41:16] Give this episode of Five Star Review because I want other people to hear all the golden nuggets and stern crews that Tedi has shared with us today. Thank you, Tedi, and thank you all of you. Thank you to all of you, my friends. See you next week on another episode of The Stern Truth Business and Filtered.

[00:41:36] Marshall Stern: Thank you so much for tuning in to the Stern Truth. If you found today's episode helpful, we would love to hear from you. Please like, share, and leave us a review. Also, if you'd like to be a guest in an upcoming episode or join us in one of our Moment Accountability Group sessions, simply email me to marshall@marshallstern.net.

[00:41:56] That's marshall@marshallstern.net. And don't forget to hit the subscribe button so you never miss an episode. Until next time, keep pushing forward and leading with confidence.