Strive For Good Life Podcast Ep. 31: Expert Insights & Business Innovation Tips from Chanaye Jackson

Introduction

Welcome to Episode 31 of the Strive for Good Life Podcast! Host Nino Pingera sits down with business innovation and operations expert Chanaye Jackson for an inspiring discussion on entrepreneurship, business success, and innovation.

Chanaye shares her incredible journey from public health and education to co-founding two businesses in the film industry. Despite no formal business background, she mastered operations, overcame challenges as a new entrepreneur, and built a thriving career.

In this episode, discover:

✅ How to validate your business ideas before launching.

✅ The importance of building industry connections.

✅ Tips for navigating challenges as a first-time business owner.

✅ Proven strategies to optimize operations, streamline processes, and boost efficiency.

Connect with Chanaye here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/chanayejackson/

https://swantowncreative.com/biz-consult/

Listen to this Episode Here:

Watch this Episode Here:

Strive For Good Life Podcast Ep. 31 Transcript:

NOTE: This transcript was computer generated and likely contains errors

Nino Pingera: Welcome everyone to another episode of strive for Good Life podcast. I'm here with my guest chanaye Jackson who is a business Innovation and operations consultant super excited to have her on the show. So welcome chanaye.

Chanaye Jackson: Thanks Nino. How are you?

Nino Pingera: E I'm doing great. Thank you for asking. How about you you?

Chanaye Jackson: I cannot complain.

Nino Pingera: That's good to hear. I'm glad so I'm excited to jump in and talk about your story because there's so much to it that I think our audience is really going to get a lot from so maybe we just started the beginning how you got into business. because I know on our last conversation, you said you never intended to be an entrepreneur.

Chanaye Jackson: never never

Nino Pingera: So let's get into that. What happened?

Chanaye Jackson: geez, great question because no I never thought I'd be an entrepreneur. I was told to go to school get good grades and get a job. So I did that. I have a masters in public health. I'm a certified dasm discipline agile scrum Master. I've had a couple of different lives. I worked in Education and Research done a lot of things lived in Six States two countries. So I've done what I was supposed to and then in my last position which was in 2019, I realized that I was only going to have to keep going and finding another position. I'm a millennial. So what that means is that I'm technically not going to be able to really stay at any position for 20 years. I get three I might even get five but 10 or 15 is really really uncommon for my age group. And so I was really daunted by that

Chanaye Jackson: Opportunity I'll call it I guess and I was like, there must be something else and So I actually Things happen in the weirdest of ways. My mother had died and I had a little money in my pocket and I had a boyfriend who was in the Atlanta area and he was like, hey, do you want to start a business? It was like okay, we started too, in April of 2018 and essentially what both of them were in the film industry and while I am not at all greased in the film industry. I know nothing much about it. We started an equipment get business and a production company. he and I have since closed the production company, but the equipment company is going on year six and

Chanaye Jackson: he and I are now just business partners and things like that. But essentially when I moved to Atlanta which was about four years ago now, I was not ready to go back to corporate because I was like again, I'm going to have to go through the rigmarole of doing the interviews and then am I good enough and then am I not good enough and then I'm gonna get the job and then they're gonna drive me crazy and then it's gonna be two more years and then I'm gonna do it again. So essentially I read was realizing that my work history is essentially I've never worked a corporate position for three years. I think the longest at this point is two years eight months. So whereas now I've worked solidly in my business for six years and four completely without any other support. So what would I feel like that saves something?

00:05:00

Nino Pingera: Yes, that's so interesting. I think that's a Common Thread with entrepreneurs as they just hate being employees. Which is definitely true in my case can't stand it.

Chanaye Jackson: Yeah.

Nino Pingera: But that's pretty amazing that you went from zero to two businesses. Maybe, get into that a little bit like why to instead of just one and I mean, I don't know what kind of challenges were you facing with that? Yeah.

Chanaye Jackson: why? Yeah, it's kind of silly. Isn't it to hop from zero to two?

Chanaye Jackson: I don't have a really good reason for why we had to immediately because we opened up the bank accounts on the same day. So there were definitely two at the same time. I don I don't have a good reasons. It sounded like a good idea. They are complementary to each other.

Chanaye Jackson: But with that said it means that so I know it for things in business right? I know a little bit about Finance. I know a little bit about operations. I know a little bit about strategy and I know a little bit about a little bit so that was probably the biggest struggle was all of a sudden I have two businesses and I figure out how to run And run appropriately adequately make money. what? Does that even mean? I know there's profit but then there's Revenue but what's the difference there's words There's a whole vocabulary that you don't know understand and I mean you can probably do the equation you're like, okay, this is what profit means this is what Revenue means right but

Chanaye Jackson: How do you do that in practice also got really real and I would say that was probably the biggest thing. So my onboard to becoming a business owner was super fast because the reason why I bring up the day that he opened my business partner opened up the two bank accounts was on that day. He opened up the bank accounts and was walking out the door and he got our first call for a $50,000 client. And then that needed to be done that weekend.

Nino Pingera: Wow.

Chanaye Jackson: It was Wednesday.

Chanaye Jackson: All of a sudden I was in the DC area so all the time. I had to fly back down to Atlanta and figure out we didn't even have cards for the bank accounts to do all of the work. We had to negotiate contracts and get all the people in the right places. So all the sudden I was a business owner and trying to make a profit off of an industry that I'm not from they don't really know much about he has a ton of experience in it, but I don't so We were just figuring it out. So yeah.

Nino Pingera: Yeah, Just got thrown right in.

Chanaye Jackson: Yeah, welcome to business business 101 was done in. a week

Nino Pingera: Yeah, that's incredible. But it's interesting because so many people struggle to kind of get the first client and gay get the traction. So there's almost kind of too much time in the beginning trying to figure that And so you guys had a client literally day one. How did that happen? Was it just the connections that your boyfriend had or

Chanaye Jackson: Yeah, so that's where it's interesting. So I think a lot of people do this a version of incorrectly that I wish for something different for all of them. So my business partner, he had a ton of Connections in the industry already. So theoretically opening a business and being paid for the work that he was already doing made sense. It was a Next Step. He brought me in because I have a pretty operational logical mind, right? That's why we still are a good team in that regard. I have another business we've closed the production company and I've opened up my Consulting. I didn't open it and be like and now I

Chanaye Jackson: Have a shingle open I went from okay, I've had all these conversations people have paid me a little bit. I've experimented more. So now the logical next step is for me to open up my business be more established. I was already and I think that's the place that we forget is you already need to have kind of sampled your idea at least to a small degree before.

00:10:00

Chanaye Jackson: Doing all of the things like immediately tossing in thousands of dollars. it doesn't have to be perfect right but at least of vetting so when I started my consultant which is completely by myself. it's been very much like my first client was within a couple of weeks right because I'd already been testing. I already had started making connections people already kind of new what I did even though I've gotten a much better refinement now, but Regardless, I think that's a missed opportunity that many folks do.

Nino Pingera: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. You need to start from a place of experience. And like you said, if you're out there telling people what you do, then there's already going to be some interest on some level and it's gonna be easy to be able to turn that into a planet. So I love that and appreciate that you brought that up. Let's talk about kind of what led to closing one. I mean because it sounds like you're making money with both right? So why shut one down or white. how did you go about making the decision to close one and focus on the other?

Chanaye Jackson: wow, this was So, Good. We think back why did I so I'm always been kind of the backbone of the business. So my business partner, he is sales marketing great. that's his primary and he's also the equipment guy he's always making sure that we have the right equipment and the right places. he knows the ins and out significantly more than I do. He's been in the industry now for about 15 years. He's been around a while. so

Chanaye Jackson: The equipment company has been just a slow and steady Pace it is the consistent Money Maker since the Inception. it's a very simple model you take equipment to set on the production itself goes and pays you for it. You bring the equipment home, there's no messiness. There's no extra thoughts in it. You need more equipment. You pay more money you bring that money home it's a very business model is pretty There that's…

Nino Pingera: Yeah.

Chanaye Jackson: what most Or equipment rental companies are so it's always been a very good consistent earner.

Chanaye Jackson: Then the production company it is a feast or famine sort of business model we made $50,000 on that first day, that was our $50,000 client and then it took another four months before we got the next $50,000 client, it was just so up and down and actually profit margins on that money is not really all that great and the amount of time that you're spending. To get that client wrapped up. Is a lot. Just being completely completely and totally honest. So as I was looking at one of the things I think many people miss out on It's an interesting metric that maybe you should look at too often but it is interesting to keep track of is your hourly wage.

Chanaye Jackson: So what was happening is so as a production company you hire people you bring equipment in and you produce a commercial a music video and AD of some sort, right? You get it done. You've paid a very large chunk of that money towards getting the filming of that particular piece done. And then you have another piece of the pie that now it needs to be edited and finalized for the client to be able to do whatever they're supposed to do. for us we were finding that initial shoot that principal photography is what we call it that from principle photography was easy get it done, people are professionals we know about the industry. So it was really like check-ins and then done.

Chanaye Jackson: It was managing the client getting through that edit because you have to finish the edit before you're gonna get your last payment. But if they go and start extending that out by hours and days and weeks there was one funny little friend that decided to extend it out a month. I've Bloating that money for over a month to the editor because they need to be paid. Otherwise, they might walk off the job and then I got to start all over again. So essentially why did we close the production company? my hourly wage was going down too low It wasn't worth keeping open and a lot of production companies are short bursts anyway, and it makes sense for the reasons. Why so yeah.

00:15:00

Nino Pingera: Okay, so just kind of a tough business model because of the client management because of all the pieces because of the overhead of managing that yeah, so it just speaks the importance of having the right model, right? simple yeah.

Chanaye Jackson: Yeah, it's not a good one. Yeah, it is totally a model that. Is really fast it burns bright and hard and fast and then it's out. So,…

Nino Pingera: Yeah.

Chanaye Jackson: I was finding that I was spending more to do the upkeep right do the bookkeeping keeping the registration doing the business licenses doing all of that stuff us spending more on that versus actually making better money. it didn't make Financial sense.

Nino Pingera: I think that's also key right doing an analysis or an audit of how you're spending your time. And if those actions are actually contributing to the bottom line or if they're just Busy work,…

Chanaye Jackson: Yeah.

Nino Pingera: right and so that's such an important part because too often you get stuck in the details of that stuff. and it's not actually improving the business.

Chanaye Jackson: Yeah, it wasn't.

Nino Pingera: more money, so

Chanaye Jackson: Yeah, there wasn't and we were very small, right so people when you're a smaller company you get smaller budgets, which means that you're working with smaller margins. It's just kind of what it is.

Nino Pingera: yeah, yeah, so You know something you said that I kind of want to dig into a little bit. You said that you were always the background of business is that just having a logical mind being able to run operations? or what do you think, gave you I guess that ability to be the backbone. in your mind

Chanaye Jackson: yeah, it's probably significantly more of The Logical side of myself showing up more we have my business partner and we have a joke that we've recently come up with which is he's the shark and I'm the farmer. He will find the people he will get them into the doors and he will nail that first sale and then I will be the farmer and I will keep them here, right they will feel really good and the warm and fuzzy part. So my job is to make sure that delivery feels really good to them that invoicing process feels really good. Right yes, they're gonna have to pay that's not a thing but we're all going to be held at the same standards. So yes, I think it's one my mind the way that I operate sort of in the world in general. He is the much more stronger go-getter. He's been in the industry much longer the other part is that and

Chanaye Jackson: We're just capitalizing on some of our best assets, he's much more of the creative. He speaks the language that I don't speak. So. Why not just you…

Nino Pingera: Yeah.

Chanaye Jackson: stay in our zones of genius and I think also for myself having such a strong background and lots of different aspects of my corporate life. Also really lending a hand right? I was the one that created the chart of accounts. I was living room one that went and created all the budgets. I was the one that did the bookkeeping for a couple of years. there were things that I had had in my previous life that he didn't have so why around paying Square whole you don't need to donate event.

Nino Pingera: Do you think it was important to have both of you then? I mean is that what you attribute to success to have both personalities being able to handle those aspects…

Chanaye Jackson: Yes.

Nino Pingera: because there are so many people that are starting and they're kind of on their own right and they're trying to play every role in the business. what do you say to those people? I mean Do you think they need to go out and…

Chanaye Jackson: Right, no having a business partner is probably the hardest thing you will ever do in your life…

Nino Pingera: find a business partner or?

Chanaye Jackson: because you are marrying that person even if you don't marry them and your personal life you marry them when you are in a business together, it's a lot. I am 1000% sure that I will never have another business partner when the equipment company longer I will never do this is partner again. It is a lot of hard work. So what that said? I'm also a solopreneur right building a consulting company where I'm on accustomed to being in the front. I have a business partner in a different business who does all of the front work, I do the back work. I keep people with this right I would say that's the place where you double down actually

Nino Pingera: second

Chanaye Jackson: I love to do admin work. I will think about my chart of accounts all day. I will go and tweak my contracts and whatever. I'm so good at that. I love that. But if I want to have a successful business, I have to shake hands and kiss babies, that's the reality of the work that I have to do. So I actually double down on that. I mean a rule for myself every day. how many conversations do I need to schedule my calendar every week if I walk out of my door how many people do I need to have talk to? pushing because that's the thing that's going to move my Revenue needle. That's the number I need to move my contracts who cares right my chart of accounts.

00:20:00

Chanaye Jackson: They'll be but if anything my biggest piece of advice would be to double down on the thing that you're most afraid of it always tends to be Marketing sales. How do I get my name out there? And then how do I make sure that I can make the money after my name is up there?

Nino Pingera: Yeah, that's interesting. Because a lot of people are afraid of that but you seem to have boiled it down to some very practical things that you measure I mean just people talk to whatever it is. Right is that the advice that you would give people in terms of how they go about overcoming the fear or there are other things you've done as well.

Chanaye Jackson: yeah, no metrics are key data in your business is 1000% the thing that I don't even know how to say a million times need metrics. So it's performance. I am sort of introverted. know I'm not really sure how to start talking to people. It takes a lot to get going. I'm a little on the shy side. I can get going but it takes a bit to Turn on the edge. So the way that I get through it is I put metrics in it. So I require of myself that I go to Five networking meetings a week.

Chanaye Jackson: It can be online. It can be in person doesn't really matter. I need to put five on my calendar. I have to schedule my goal is that I schedule 12 one-on-one networking meetings a day. All right. Yes a week that I schedule 12 networking meetings week and obviously because I go to Five networking meetings week, then it means that I should be able to get It and that number relatively quickly.

Chanaye Jackson: If I go to a networking event, especially if I step out of my house online events are a little different. But when I park my car I kind of do a internal check and I how am I feeling today is going to be an hour. I'm like, okay. I'm feeling all right, so I'm gonna meet five people today. Shake hands whatever and I'm gonna get their card. I'm gonna try to contact basically figure out how to continue the conversation and then once I hit five if I don't feel like doing any more then I'm done I can leave.

Chanaye Jackson: Sometimes if I feel like I want to keep going then I'll give myself another goal. I'll do two more. I'll do three more and every time I hit the goal, then I'll take a pause. How am I feeling? Yes. No. All right. It's the end of the night means it's time to go but it doesn't really matter. So setting metrics has been immensely helpful because I am an overachiever I am a goal oriented kind of person. So this is incredibly helpful for me to be able to one do the thing that I don't want to do the most out of my business right? I'd rather review my contracts. I review them all the time. You don't need to review your contracts on of a basis, but you do need to meet people on a super regular basis. So this is the way that I push myself.

Nino Pingera: Yeah, I love that. You have some tricks on because it seems like a lot To schedule a week. I mean finding all these networking events?

Chanaye Jackson: Okay, so that's actually kind of the fun part. I think that everyone should create when you're meeting somebody they're probably going to ask you the next question. How can I help? What are you looking for? What do you needing? Whatever I tend to have I tend to suggest that you have two or three answers to that question. so you would have the answer one question that you would ask that if you said What can I do for You want hey, do you know anybody who would need my services? Do you know anybody who does this who you can introduce me to? And my favorite one is have you been to any cool networking events that you would suggest that I check out? it has

00:25:00

Chanaye Jackson: It's been immensely helpful, right so when I first started out, I would go to Eventbrite and meet up and Google, just networking events in wherever I travel a lot. So I don't mind going to a networking event not in my area. so I had networking event in so I started there and then I would follow up and

Chanaye Jackson: People and then I figured out this three responses to that one question was important because sometimes you don't really Vibe with a person or I don't really want anything from you. We didn't really hit it off but I should be polite because I'm gonna ask you the same question and…

Nino Pingera: Yeah.

Chanaye Jackson: yeah you kind of need to do it. So on the spot I was like, I don't know what to do with this man. He was nice but I didn't really know what to do with them. So I was like, hey, do you know any cool networking events? That should absolutely attend. He gave me four of them. I already knew about one and…

Nino Pingera: 

Chanaye Jackson: then he had to be my sponsor kind of for another and he's like, here's my email that you need to use blah blah. Okay, and here's two more. They're great. All right.

Nino Pingera: Wow.

Chanaye Jackson: so sometimes you don't even need to ask for business or helping you find these X Y and Z people, sometimes it can be as simple as do you know? The end and that case I figured out networking. So it's been quite easy actually to find really cool networking opportunities and it's actually one of my favorite questions to go to because I feel kind of all introduced if you can't give me a client right now that I'm kind of like, okay So then I kind of default to the networking any cool groups. They should go and talk to or meet. That sort of thing.

Nino Pingera: Hello that I love that. I think it's really valuable because at least in terms of against that I've had on my show so far. That's how the least talked about topics. Just going out in person to networking events and I see the value in that especially if you're then getting referrals to other events. I think that's super cool because that just compounds the opportunity And so that's very cool you mentioned a number of different metrics that how do you track all that you have you just put it in your notes on your phone, or I'm just curious.

Chanaye Jackson: So wife one of my favorite app is called notion. It I guess it would be equivalent of your apps like your notes app on your phone. for me it's a place where I don't my brain, it has database as all sorts of stuff in it, word dot equivalent of a word doc. It has databases and all that sort of stuff. So the thing that I'm implementing that I just started really implementing because I've been very very

Chanaye Jackson: Focused on meeting people and so in my notion, I have a weekly review that's number of networking meetings. You went to you scheduled number of people you met with number of people that you pitched right? Because not always are are they sales meeting? Sometimes they're get to know you they might be strategic partner meetings. So I asked pitch number people that are strategic Partners number people that cancel. so I do that every week.

Chanaye Jackson: And have a few others. I'm a data gal. So there's a lot of metrics that I track but keeping a really good calendar and I highly recommend a CRM that goes in really helps to keep everything sort of going in a really good place.

Nino Pingera: I love that. of I heard great things. There's so many different things you can do with it. So that's very cool.

Chanaye Jackson: yeah, yeah, it's Huge I use it for basically a brain dump because I have paper everywhere, but I'm gonna lose that piece of paper. I emailed that to myself. I will forget that I had it written in I love to write emails and drafts and save it. That's not gonna work. That's not tell you the amount of thoughts. I've lost because I thought I sent the draft, but I deleted the draft. So Notions like a perfect place for me to just I have a notion page that just says Just Thoughts. That's all it's called.

Nino Pingera: yeah, I think there's a lot of value in having a place where you can dump your brain I Journal a little bit…

Chanaye Jackson: Yep. Yeah.

Nino Pingera: but then I'm always in the notes app on my phone, but I would probably benefit from using something like notion because of all the other functionality that it offers,…

00:30:00

Chanaye Jackson: Yeah.

Nino Pingera: so I think that's super cool. Let's talk about some of the other ways that you've improved yourself and I don't know develop new skills or whatever. It is intentionally as you've been on this journey of being an entrepreneur.

Chanaye Jackson: Probably some of the bigger ones really starting to understand my finances. what does it mean?

Nino Pingera: Okay.

Chanaye Jackson: I do look over my balance sheet and p&l. monthly Agree, most people need to look at it monthly but quarterly is fine. But I like scrolling back a little further from before I got there is I think everyone should have a board of advisors. so that board of advisors Can be big can be small but at least a few specific people should be on it and here are some options ant your lawyer. Your financial advisor your bookkeeper a business mentor.

Chanaye Jackson: Probably a couple other but those are the top five for me. So I don't make too many decisions about my business without having spoken to at least one to two of them. They don't always need to be spoken to on a regular basis, but keeping a good conversation going with your accountant

Chanaye Jackson: Think about that what would happen if you didn't speak to your accountant at the end of the year when you're trying to wrap up and you spoke to them? I don't know in March in June in August and then December is just kind of like I'm good cool, what would happen to your business, My lawyer, and I changed my contract all the time. I'm sure she's ready to kill me. But now we're tweaking right where I'm like, can you review this is this? Okay, I think because I'm experienced this problem and as a lawyer sometimes for a lawyer, giving them a blank page. They're gonna charging thousands of dollars to fix one little contract.

Chanaye Jackson: But if I give her something that has something a little written down she might be like, I see what you're talking about and make the change appropriately then I'm being chick paying her a lot less money. So all I have to say those are just a couple of examples the big ones is get a board of advisors where you're easily able to get a hold of them that they want your business to succeed and you can ask as many questions as you might need to pay for it.

Chanaye Jackson: But they're there to help And so with that said read your financials. So that's really any time. I learn more about my financials makes me a lot smarter. So I read books like profit first. I was following and I worked with an emith coach. I Google how can I relate My line of Charter of accounts doesn't matter. Yes. No great. I talk to my accountant all the time. I was texting with him last night, he's my friend. I love that guy right get to a point where you can this is their people who know you because that you want and they are able to invest so I can't say bored of advisors. more than do it you need them. They're great. That's what they're there for and if they're not great go find someone else. There's lots of them available.

Nino Pingera: That's a really interesting one. Sorry. I'm going to touch on that real quick…

Chanaye Jackson: Yeah, yeah.

Nino Pingera: because there's people will talk about a mentor or coach and that's invaluable. But to have you…

Chanaye Jackson: Sure.

Nino Pingera: these other Professionals in your corner, especially when it comes to finance or legal issues. I think that's invaluable and I don't hear anyone else talking about those things. So I just think it's cool and…

Chanaye Jackson: Yeah, no.

Nino Pingera: I really appreciate that.

Chanaye Jackson: My God, I have had my bacon saved a few times because I can call my accountant His name is He's fantastic my no worries. I'll just send off that email right now. all of a sudden the things that you're like because they're a professional in whatever their thing is. And so what you think is like, no the world's going to end. they've been doing it for years.

Chanaye Jackson: It's a 30 second call. It's a text it's nothing and so all of a sudden which you think is going to take you, 19 years and your first born child. They're it'll be done Board of I mean coach Mentor. Yeah. they're great put them on there too, but the other thing that I've been most Intentional using very specifically being intentional…

00:35:00

Nino Pingera: Yeah.

Chanaye Jackson: but I like that word is in my equipment I'm in 2021 my business partner and I triple the size of the business revenues tripled and we did it in three months. We made our entire revenue from the previous year by Midget by mid-march.

Nino Pingera: Wow.

Nino Pingera: How are able to do that? I'm sure the audience is just dying to know.

Chanaye Jackson: with a lot of sacrifice and no sleep or eating but this is what happens when you've already kept talking like if you don't continue to meet people then you're not gonna be able to scale your business. If you don't continue to meet people you're not gonna be able to change that money goal at all, right so His job is to meet people in the industry and he's a really good salesman. That So that job like to be able to do those three months of where we tripled our revenues. He worked for a year. to nail those all down

Chanaye Jackson: He had to continue consistently touch base with those folks say hi. We be healed up our business had evolved a little bit. we were talking about that so we can evolve a little bit with your need we know you need this a little bit more we have that for you. Do you think that would be helpful it kept evolving and so then when it was time to go We really had to show up. So I don't know how to emphasize enough the scariest part about my business at least for myself is meeting people. It's the scariest part. But if you don't then you can't take a client who was 50 bucks to make them 5,000 right like you if you don't do that you want your lifetime customer value to be exponential right?

Nino Pingera: right Yeah.

Chanaye Jackson: Not just

Chanaye Jackson: Today, so He was working on there was five clients in there for clients four or five. I don't remember anymore. That he worked on for about a year. And that's…

Nino Pingera: And so they just yeah,…

Chanaye Jackson: how that's tripled out. That's how

Nino Pingera: they just happen to close kind of within that window and it just blew us.

Chanaye Jackson: We knew about their trajectory. So we knew that it was going to come in that year, but we had no idea that it was going to be all the same time. but really my biggest emphasis is that that wasn't just snap like money grab. But where I was going is that rest has had to be prioritized because when you don't have the systems necessary to scale to that extent, could you triple the size of your business tomorrow? No is usually the answer.

Chanaye Jackson: basically, because I was sort of the backbone right I need to make sure the finances were there that did we keep the inventory and check to have we talked to all the finance people all the legal people and we've done all of our checks and balances all of a sudden we had to figure out how to do that Overnight and get the money necessary to expand our inventory. Hella quickly.

Chanaye Jackson: Yeah. all of a sudden I was having to make a decision. Am I going to sleep shower eat today? I can't do all three. And that eventually led to a really really serious burnout. I left for a month didn't speak for three weeks. it was really really bad. So basically the work that I do now with business owners is I want you to not have to think of it as a decision. It is what you do you sleep you shower you eat every day, or as often as you want to I mean, you like it. I love it. But that's the goal is that you have a life that your life is first your business is truly second

Chanaye Jackson: it's something else that you do It's just like you might ride your bike. You might be a crazy cyclist or you train dogs. it's a part of all you also have this business that makes you money and that's the way that you pay your bills and do all the things and I do not call it work life balance. Perhaps we can call it synergy.

00:40:00

Nino Pingera: Yeah, I love that especially because part of what I aim to do on the show is to highlight how entrepreneurship can enable freedom and so how do you go about intentionally? Designing that I mean you just schedule times for rest, or I don't know what are some tips and tricks on how to actually do that.

Chanaye Jackson: Yeah, so I actually recently worked with a coach.

Chanaye Jackson: I don't know what else to call it. But his stick is that you will be incredibly organized and so his way of organization was that you wrote a schedule for your day granted his requirements were very very stringent and not at all what I would suggest However, what I took away from that exercise is every day. I would write my schedule for the next day I would take.

Chanaye Jackson: As long as I'm necessary, usually it was around 15 minutes. So I would look through what I had on my calendar and then I would schedule in so, nine o'clock is my first meeting. It's with a person so I need to make sure write I research them a little bit just so I understand who they are. I always write a small set of notes about a person so I might just start my notes about them. just go ahead and write it down. They each give the half a sheet of paper sort of like this. So everybody gets a half sheet of Paper they write their name up there. I have my little research notes about them. What are my one or two questions for them? And I do that for the entire page I have a doctor's appointment. I have these two or three networking meetings. I go Boop nine o'clock ten o'clock eleven clock twelve o'clock, and then I put a

Chanaye Jackson: Then I also have a moment where I also go what are some of the two to three Key activities that I need to get done today, and it's personal or professional doesn't really matter. it could be that I need to order dog food. That's if I do these two to three things, this will make my entire day complete. I need to order dog food. I need to send that email to Nino and I need to write my script for my podcast. Period right just keeping it as simple and easy as possible. write down the schedule see what you have going on then plug in that what are the two to three things? what would make your day complete and then when it's done be done and really it's not about okay, I'm done and close up your computer. There's a ritual to closing down and for me that's Doing my next day schedule.

Chanaye Jackson: Crossing off who did I meet with I'm kind of updating for my weekly metrics of did I meet my 12 people each week. Then I also will clean up my desk put my pens away not, just tidy it up and then I can sit back and if it's all done my schedule's done. I've kind of took a look at what happened this today. Then we finish up that last little thing because I didn't finish up my top three. Okay things done. and God

Nino Pingera: Yeah, I love that planning is really important. Every time I plan day goes so much better.

Chanaye Jackson: making so much better.

Nino Pingera: Yeah, gosh, I feel like I can breathe at the end of it because I have accomplished the big things on my list. So yeah, I definitely recommend that I'm curious about so when I introduced you as the business Innovation and operations consultant, I was curious about that Innovation piece. where does that factor in and what are you Consulting on that's innovative?

Chanaye Jackson: Yes, so really I found that in operations we will tweak operations a lot as business owners. it's one of those things that doesn't really make us money. It helps with the money, but it doesn't make money so we will spend time on it and specifically in operations. We specifically think that tools are the operations. So we're like, we put in a sauna. we use Monday. We have a CRM, but that's not The entirety of the operation and then you don't actually know what your operations are supposed to be doing for you in looking at your business model. what are the outcomes of every system and every process that you're supposed to be doing and how does it contribute to your business model? So the Innovation is really around. Do you have a business model that works?

00:45:00

Chanaye Jackson: Do you deliver to people of who are you working with you like them? This is where a lot of the Innovation comes from because I work with a three. I call it a three p plus you framework. So the top of it is you and it's a diamond or as a triangle. So the top of it is you and it has three parts. Let's talk about your leadership yourself, which is sort of debrief. Do you take days off and then your mindset can you do this? And then the next level is your people and your products. So who you work with?

Chanaye Jackson: Vendors employees and then also your clients do you like them? do your employees do they feel like they know what you're up to do. They know where the business is going. Do they know how they contribute to that overall growth your products. Are they priced appropriately should you actually be offering the next level should you not be offering several things? Right? This is all products or Services all the same. And then the bottom of it is the actual process the supports all of those things. How do we make sure that you have a day off? How do we make sure that the employees know that they're supposed to be doing? How do we make sure that when that one customer who loves to call you on Sunday night to ask for something by noon Monday morning. How do we give you boundaries so that you're saying? Yes, I can get that to you.

Chanaye Jackson: But It'll be Friday whatever is important, So those are all processes things. So that's where the Innovation comes in. How do we make sure that all of the pieces that go and actually make a business have been through purely completely supported. So that's way and I spend the whole thing is creating being curious is actually my favorite word but Innovative and it doesn't have to be a business model. That's Your business not model doesn't need to be super sexy quoted included can be I bring equipment to the set I get paid I bring it back. That's not a super sexy business model, but it does work.

Nino Pingera: You mentioned Curiosity on the last call we had and so I'm curious about really what you mean by that what that looks like is that just really trying to understand every element and what the purpose of it is or what does that look like for you? Practically?

Chanaye Jackson: Curiosity is What's this for? why am I doing it curiosity is understanding the reason why a part of my framework has you at the top and it's that those three parts is Are you okay doing all of this? I think sometimes and I'm totally putting myself in this is like we feel like we're supposed to be doing. You can name the thing. We're supposed to want to be growing. We're supposed to be a million dollar company. We're supposed to be a five million dollar company. We're supposed to have 500 employees. We're Supposed to right what would happen and this is the curiosity what would happen if I didn't do that if I focus on the things that I actually care about what are the things that I care about?

Chanaye Jackson: So you sort of centered questions because we want your business to sit in your life not for it to be the life that you lead. So if you stay curious. What can you change or move out move in your way to better balance the way that you're living?

Nino Pingera: I love that. I think that's important. I just noticed the time and…

Chanaye Jackson: This Nino you write you ask this great questions.

Nino Pingera: I want to be respectful of you.

Chanaye Jackson: I'm like, I have to tell you I have to tell you.

Nino Pingera: I I mean, I love this conversation. I feel like we can talk all day but we probably should wrap it up. Where can people go to connect with you.

Chanaye Jackson: looks very yeah, so I hang out on LinkedIn. That's my favorite place to be. so I'm sure you can find me very quickly. My name is Shanae chanaye and my last name is Jackson. There's two of us. I'm pretty sure you can figure out who I am outside of that. My best other place is swantown creative.com. That's name of my company Swan like the bird town and creative creativ. And essentially that's where you can find everything that I'm up to. I have a podcast that is coming out here in January 23rd called the idea to Empire that's there blogs and I'm running events on a regular basis both online and in person so you can meet people and so yeah. That's the easiest and the best way LinkedIn my website. Everything else is Lagniappe.

00:50:00

Nino Pingera: That's perfect. We'll have links to everything in the show notes. If you're listening go there to be able to connect with CNA. This is an amazing. What's your final message to our audience though? There's one last thing you could say.

Chanaye Jackson: And take a break. It's okay. It'll be there tomorrow. I promise.

Nino Pingera: I love that. I think that's perfect. Especially with the holiday season right now, right because I feel the pressure to just keep working.

Chanaye Jackson: Yep.

Nino Pingera: But I think we need to remind you that it's okay. So thank you.

Chanaye Jackson: It's okay.

Nino Pingera: Thank you for being here for those listening make sure you're subscribed. So you don't miss another episode and please share this content if it's been valuable for you. Thank you so much for being here chanaye and we'll catch everyone in the next episode.

Chanaye Jackson: Thank you.