218 | The Great Resignation 2021: Entrepreneurship, Burnout & Happiness with Dennis Consorte
Our guest this week on the pod is Dennis Consorte. Dennis is the Founder of Consorte Marketing and is a Digital Marketing & Small Business Expert at Digital.com. He has been in the internet marketing space for almost 20 years.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
The Great Resignation 2021: Entrepreneurship, Burnout & Happiness Interview with Dennis Consorte
Transcription with Otter.ai.
SPEAKERS
Dennis Consorte, Paul Zelizer
Paul Zelizer 00:01
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to another episode of The Awarepreneurs podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of conscious business, social impact, and awareness practices. Each episode, I do a deep dive interview with a thought leader in this intersection. Someone who has market tested experience that has already transformed me many times. Before I introduce our guests and our topic today, I have one request, you can go over to Apple podcasts or whatever app you're listening to this show on to rating in a review, it helps tremendously. Thanks for considering. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to Dennis Consorte. And our topic is The Great Resignation 2021: Entrepreneurship, Burnout, & Happiness. Dennis is the founder of consort de marketing, and is a digital marketing and small business expert at Digital Comm. He has been in the internet marketing space for over 20 years. Dennis, welcome to the show.
Dennis Consorte 01:02
Well, I am so excited to be here. Thank you,
Paul Zelizer 01:06
We got a lot to talk about my friend, this Great Resignation 2021 thing is literally like shaking up the business world down to the very roots. So I'm so thrilled and honored to have you here. Before we get into that conversation, Dennis and how you got interested, what's happening and what you're doing in this space. We're called Awarepreneurs. And one of the ways we like to get to know somebody is to ask you about a wellness or resiliency practice something that you personally do to resource yourself for this important work.
Dennis Consorte 01:36
I do so many things, Paul, I don't know where to start. So let me give you three examples if I can, and I promise not to take too much time. The first example is I go for a walk almost every day. In fact, I just got back from a walk, I did a couple of hours just around a park nearby. And during that walk, I had a couple of phone calls. And I did an audio course. So that's one way that I like to break up my day. in the morning. I'm a practicing stoic. And so I do a meditation known as the view from above, where I imagined myself where I'm sitting right now. And I see myself in a room and then I basically zoom out into outer space. And it helps me realize that whatever problems I do have are so insignificant compared to the universe. And then the third thing that I do, which I picked up very recently, is my wife bought me an Oculus, recently. And it has an app called trip, which is a mindfulness app. So I put on this VR headset, and it's super cool. I see in three dimensions. This guided meditation where I'm going through 3d spaces and solving simple puzzles. And that helps me get into a flow state in the morning.
Paul Zelizer 02:54
Peter Paul, had a great set of practices. Thanks for sharing that, Dennis. So we're gonna get into this topic of what is The Great Resignation 2021. Before we do that - you've been passionate about small business and trends in small business and helping small businesses learn how to market their products and services better so they can be more successful for 20 years. How did you get into this passion of yours?
Dennis Consorte 03:21
I made many mistakes with my own small businesses. And most recently, several years ago, I had to shutter my digital marketing company for a couple of years, I actually took a couple of years off, to get my head straight, because it just wasn't. I had this business and I had a bunch of employees and I had a vision. And I was really excited about it. And then I made some mistakes. And those mistakes were significant. And it made it very difficult for me to to go through the day. And I was a very grumpy person, I was not pleasant to be around. And because I had the wrong mindset, it affected my leadership style. It affected my team, it affected my business. And it took some time to just really recover from that and to think about, okay, how do I reboot my life. And in that recover, I realized, you know what, I made these mistakes, I want to make it my mission to help other people to not make all of the same mistakes. And so that's what I do today.
Paul Zelizer 04:35
New and creative mistakes instead of the same ones over and over again, I encourage my clients like if there's any way you can learn from some of the mistakes that are made commonly and make new and different ones instead of the ones that a lot of people make. You're probably going to really appreciate that. So I hear you I agree with you. Yeah. And when was that that you shut down your you paused the digital marketing agency.
Dennis Consorte 04:59
Oh, gosh. was probably around 2015. Yeah, probably 2014 2015 right around there.
Paul Zelizer 05:08
So like, the whole world, The Great Resignation 2021, we're gonna talk about in just a second, I want to hear what it means to you, Dennis. But in 2020, with the pandemic, it's like, the whole world went on a big values clarification process. Does that feel fair to say,
Dennis Consorte 05:26
that is 100% accurate? Look, this, this pandemic had some terrible outcomes. And the lockdowns also had some terrible outcomes, things that weren't expected, right, we had these lock downs, because we wanted to make the world better. But there were some things that happened, people ended up suffering from depression, suicide rates went up. But we also had some positive outcomes from these lock downs. And one of those positive outcomes was, as you said, people started to reevaluate their lives and how much time matters to them, and how much their families matter, and how much their jobs matter. We spend so much of our time at work, and to do a job that you don't love day in and day out, would make you a miserable person. That's what it did to me. And this, this time that we had gave people an opportunity to say, you know what, I like spending more time around my family. I like having a flexible schedule where I can take a break in the middle of the day and come back refreshed and be more productive. I like knowing that my boss isn't looking over my shoulder and counting the minutes and instead is judging me based on the value that I bring to the company. I want to do more of that.
Paul Zelizer 06:46
And you had some experiences that you were like an early adapter. Before Yeah, much of the world's that wow, like a like a big pause? And what am I even doing and what's going on on the world? And how do I fit in? And how does my work life fit? And then, and so as somebody who had an experience of like, wow, I got a little bit off track here, maybe more than a little bit off track and pausing and then rebooting. You maybe had some empathy for folks like around the world, there's this thing called the Great resignation. What is that? And how would you describe a dentist? And then let's talk about what do we do about it? Where does entrepreneurship?
Dennis Consorte 07:30
Yeah, The Great Resignation is a response to this paradigm that we have all been forced to be a part of, for better and for worse. And in rhe leveling ourselves and changing our priorities in terms of how much money means to us how much time means to us how much our jobs mean to us. We've all been shifting our lives around for hopefully, the better, more people are looking for purpose in the work that they do. More people want to do things that matter for their communities, or the world at large or even themselves. And, as in, you know, I'm probably going off on a tangent here. So you can just pull me back if I didn't answer your question. But I wanted to, I wanted to touch on this before I forget. Which is to say that, naturally, it's important to understand that naturally. I'm an introvert, I'm, if you ever take the Myers Briggs test, I'm an INTJ. Which just means that I get more energy when I'm by myself, and I'm distraction free. And I lose energy when I'm around lots of people. So I can function as an extrovert if I need to. But it requires a lot of energy. And with this great resignation, it's almost like a golden age for introverts. Because suddenly, you've got all of these people who maybe didn't function very well in a traditional office environment. And now suddenly, they're working from home, where they're distraction free for certain people, not everybody, but certain people. And they're saying, Wow, I can do so much more, I can be so much more productive, and I feel better. So with this great resignation, I think we also have to have empathy for different personality types, and to understand that people like me are going to thrive in this environment, people who are more extroverted and get energy from being around people, it might be a little bit harder for them to adapt. And so I think that we need to just have a really flexible outlook on this thing, to give people a choice and to say, look, I want you to be happy with the work that you do because ultimately happy workers are going to be much more productive And they're going to stick around longer. So I want you to be happy, whatever that means. So if we have a an environment where you have the flexibility to either come into an office or work from home, or meet your colleague at a coffee shop, you do you. And that's, that's where I think we're moving with this thing on on a local level. Now on a global level, I think that we're going to see a much more connected world. And this has been going on for decades already. It's just been accelerated because of these lockdowns where people are realizing that you don't have to be physically tied to a specific location in order to do a job. And so that's why you have companies that will hire people overseas for certain roles. And it's why you have people in the US who will, let's say, work for a company in New York, but moved to another state where the cost of living is lower. Or even you have people who are living the van life where they're literally living in a van, and driving around the country, or even around Europe or other places. And they're experiencing life, they get to travel, and do their job, and bring value to their employer. All of this while being decentralized.
Paul Zelizer 11:27
Good upon. I too am an introvert. So I've been working from home for it'll be 15 years in January, it's been a while. adulation? Well, thank you. And I just want to say that, you know, when people were going to offices, you know, these big open floor plan workforce, you know, places that a lot of tech companies became really fond of really hard on introverts, like myself and yourself that is, and now a lot of folks who may be on the more extroverted and are also, you know, having some challenges. So I love your articulation of how much kind of individual differences there are, and really want to anybody who's been struggling, I really want to just say, I see you and you're not broken, and there may be some wiring there, and how can you work with your wiring, wherever you are on that continuum is been a big shift fast. Yeah. It's about understanding yourself from where I sit, and learning how to take care of yourself. So you can be happy and productive.
Dennis Consorte 12:35
I agree with that. 100%. A big part of The Great Resignation 2021 is, you know, a lot of people do jobs, because they just find themselves on a path towards those jobs. And then they're there. And they look back, and it's been five years, 10 years, 15 years, and they're just doing the same job because it's what they're used to, even if they're miserable. And so, this great resignation, gave us the opportunity to just really reflect and say, Is this what I really want to spend my time doing? And is this the environment I really want for myself? If I'm an introvert or an extrovert, what is the environment where I know I can thrive? let me figure that out? And let me figure out, do I need to reboot my tool set? Do I want to learn new things? Because in the five or 10 years that I've been at this job, I've developed a passion for something completely unrelated. Maybe I can turn that into a business. And if I can do that, then I can really, really experienced joy for more hours during the day.
Paul Zelizer 13:44
And you just pointed down the road, we're going to head exactly next, except I want to ask one question. You pointed down people starting new businesses at a rate that are unprecedented in our lifetime as part of the great recipe. We'll get there in just a second. But give our listeners like what kind of scope are we talking about here, the great resignation, that implies that it's not just a little tiny blip on the screen, something's happening here. Give our listeners what kind of numbers or data do we have about how big is this great presentation.
Dennis Consorte 14:16
The survey that we did at Digital com shows that one in three workers quitting their jobs or starting their own businesses, one in three, that is tremendous. And, you know, it brings me joy to think about that because I love the concept of an ownership mentality. Whether you have that mentality when you work at a company where you really own your job, and really want to bring value to the company because it makes you feel good. And also having that ownership mentality applied to your own business. It's amazing and I'm I'm thrilled that that the numbers look like this. Yeah.
Paul Zelizer 15:00
If there were only three people quitting their jobs, and one of them started the business, that wouldn't be such a big deal. But we're talking about slightly bigger numbers than that, aren't we?
Dennis Consorte 15:10
These are tremendous numbers. I mean, when you think about something like 32% of Americans, quitting their jobs and starting businesses, it is unprecedented.
Paul Zelizer 15:23
We're talking millions. And I've seen some stats, if we take entrepreneurship out of it just for a second, I've seen some stats, that about two thirds of the American workforce is seriously considering leaving their job. Think about less than two thirds of the workforce is saying, with this extended values clarification process called COVID. And all the disruptions, I'm realizing what I'm doing with the majority of my waking hours isn't aligned for who I am. And when I'm on the planet to do. And then a third of those folks are thinking about starting their own businesses, it is the biggest wave of entrepreneurship in generations.
Dennis Consorte 16:03
It's unprecedented. And what I would say is that this should be a wake up call for employers, look, you should run your business, however you want to write, nobody is forced to work for you. However, we are in a global economy, we are in a connected world, people talk. And you have to be the kind of company today, that doesn't just pay people well. But you have to give them a sense of purpose, you really have to show people that what they do matters. And you also have to show people that they matter to you. This is what's going to happen with the companies that are they're going to do well in this economy is realize this earlier, and they're going to make cultural changes in their organizations to really show people that they matter and to show people why the work that they do matters.
Paul Zelizer 17:00
And I'd go even further out on a limb because I'm like that then I would say the founders and the leaders I know in companies that are about impact and about having purpose baked into the DNA of the company, they're getting knocks on their doors, can I come work for you. And the companies were that's less apparent or haven't put much time they're scrambling their best people are leaving either to go knock on the door of someplace where they feel like there is more values and purpose, or like we're about to talk about people who are really skilled, they're saying, you know what, it's time for me to start my own thing.
Dennis Consorte 17:38
Yeah, yeah. And that, that's pretty much my story is, I am. One thing about me is I can't just work on one thing day in and day out, I need lots of different projects to keep me interested. That's what drives me. And so I like that I can consult for different types of businesses, and bring different businesses value in different ways. It keeps me stimulated. And so what I would say is, for some of these workers, they may find themselves in a similar predicament where maybe they're bored with just doing the same thing day in and day out. Well imagine if you took a chance. And you said, You know what, let me go out there and become a consultant or become an entrepreneur where I have different clients, and many customers, and let me figure out how I can do multiple things throughout the day to just really keep it exciting. And you know, what's interesting about this is one of the fears people have about entrepreneurship is that it's, it's not stable, it's higher risk than having a job. But there's another way to look at it. If you have a job, you basically have one client, it's your employer, if you're an entrepreneur, and you've got customers, or clients or whatever you call them. If you lose one client or 10 customers or whatever, that doesn't put you out of business, it means you just have to rebuild that piece of your business and understand what you did wrong so that you can retain the customers you do have, in my view, in many ways, being an entrepreneur is actually lower risk than having one job.
Paul Zelizer 19:29
I'm totally, and I do want to say, listener, you know, I'm passionate about entrepreneurship. So that's not even a question. I do want to say I don't think it's for everybody. I just, they're just people who are wired for less comfort with risk and innovation and the changes of the marketplace, not harder on their nervous systems and their well being so I just want to be totally forthcoming about that. And I want to cosign everything you said, Dennis, I do feel Like, especially in a rapidly changing business and market economy, I personally don't want to be subject to somebody else's resistance if they have any to change in innovation, right? Like, no, we're not going to do that. I know that's a great idea. But we're just going to do the same old thing. And you're hired to do the same old thing. So sit down, get back in your chair, Mr. Zelizer and do your work. But I told you to, that's not that doesn't feel very good for me to put my family's well being as opposed to I'm somebody who loves new ideas and loves, you know, trying to find out and to learn about what's happening in different spaces that I'm passionate about. And to find ways I can provide values and I don't have, you know, being my own boss, being my working in two companies that I'm the founder of, I don't have a filter of somebody saying, sit down, shut up and get in your chair and do what I need you to do. If there's changes in the spaces I work in, I can be on the forefront of those changes, as opposed to like begging my boss to try to pay attention to him. So we don't get caught flat footed. So I totally with you, Dennis, totally,
Dennis Consorte 21:08
I do want to touch on one very important thing that you said before we move forward with this. Entrepreneurship is not for everybody. And let me put it this way, if you're an entrepreneur, and Paul, you tell me if I'm wrong on this, if you're an entrepreneur, a half a day, is 12 hours. That's what a half a day is if you if you own your business, because you have to be thinking about it all the time. And what I would also say is that if you're in a relationship, it's very, very important that your partner is 100% on board with what you want to do. Because if they're not, it can, it can be disastrous, I can't tell you how many entrepreneurs have have had relationships that didn't continue, or have even had problems with their, you know, their children or other types of relationships in friendships, because they, they put their business first. And people felt like they were maybe in second place to the business. So it's really important that your partner is is on board with what you want to do. And that you maintain constant communications with them to make sure that whatever you're doing is is good for everybody.
Paul Zelizer 22:24
Absolutely, Dennis, thank you so much for bringing in that relationship part, I would say, I don't think that entrepreneurship has to be the same kind of hustle and grind that the mainstream story is always celebrating. I've gotten down to where I'm working about 25 hours a week average, I take a week off every four to six weeks and do a big adventure. My clients know that and love that and support that and have built systems. It didn't start that way. If you're still hustling and grinding five years in and seven years, then it might be time to get some help and look at your systems and starting a new business is oftentimes there's a lot of front loaded work and learning curve. And so it's inefficient at the beginning, because you don't quite know who you're talking to, and what you're doing and the systems aren't built. So I do want to just nuance that a little bit. It's a ton of work. And if you're getting support, and you're paying attention to systems and saying no and having good boundaries, I work much less than my colleagues in corporate who make this amazing. Yeah, who make a similar salary is what I mean. Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. And you're right. With the right systems, you
Dennis Consorte 23:42
don't have to be working these ridiculous hours. It depends on what you want, right? At the end of the day, if you want a comfortable life that still brings you purpose, where you can still create value in the world. And you can do it in, you know, four hours a week. That's amazing. Go for it,
Paul Zelizer 24:03
then your name Tim Ferriss obvious.
Dennis Consorte 24:07
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. For me, I really enjoy the work that I do. And truthfully, I could probably turn away a lot of the projects that I accept, and, and work less You're right about that. I do think that systems are super, super important. And the other piece I'll add to that is not just the systems but you need the right, you need the right people to plug into those systems. And you have to be able to trust that that's one of the challenges that I had starting different businesses of my own is, and this goes back to my childhood. I wasn't raised to just be an ultra trusting person. And so it took a lot for me to realize that if I wanted to skate And build something big. I needed to start trusting other people with responsibility.
Paul Zelizer 25:08
Thanks for saying that, Dennis. So appreciate it. So that person who's either just pulled the ripcord All right, thanks, boss. It's been real, but I'm out of here, I'm gonna go do I'm gonna go start my thing. Or they're there. They're on the verge of that. We know there's 10s of millions 100 we don't even know how many people on planet earth are pulling the ripcord and Sam out of corporate amount of organizational life, but we know it's millions. We I'm not sure anybody knows how many millions? If you look globally, right now, it's the biggest wave of entrepreneurship in our lifetime. to that person who's just said goodbye, or seriously considering it, Dennis, like, what are your top three suggestions for somebody who's saying, in this incredibly point in time, I'm going to be part of the great resignation? I'm going to go start my thing.
Dennis Consorte 25:58
Wow, that's a that's a pretty deep question. I would, I don't know if I have three specifically, but I'll give you I'll give you what comes to mind. First, you need to set goals, you need to figure out for yourself what really matters in the next one year, three years, 10 years, what matters to you, those goals might be financial, they might also be in terms of work life balance, how many hours a week you want to work, they might be in terms of the kinds of businesses or the kinds of projects or clients you want to have, they may be related to the sort of impact you want to have in the world. Whatever your goals are, you need to set them and revisit those goals, probably on a quarterly basis, because they may change as new information comes in, you realize that maybe different things matter more to you at different times in your life. So reassess those goals. Periodically, I think that you also want to just, again, make sure that you have a balance between the work that you do and the relationships that you have. And you want to keep you want to keep a mental calendar of your life. So for example, I'm 47 years old. At some point, I'm probably going to want to work less. And I need to have a sense of when that point is. Many people want to retire by the time they're in their 60s. And so if that's your goal, then you might want to think about Okay, what do I need to have in place, so that I can achieve that in the next 15 years. And then what I would say is, you want to make sure that you're always working your network. So if, if your network is small, it's okay, if you have really good connections, I have a pretty big network of 1000s of people that I'm connected to. And in that network, there may be a couple 100 people who I'm somewhat closely connected to, and maybe a few dozen, who know me very well. And those few dozen are the ones where a lot of the referrals I get come from. So another thing you can do if you're starting a business is think about your network, go through your contacts in your cell phone, because those are probably closer connections than let's say, people who you're only connected to on social media, and start picking up the phone and calling people start sending emails. And, and what I would also say is don't expect anything, don't call, don't. Don't call everybody in your phone, thinking that you're going to close a deal. Instead, just reach out to people connect with them. Find out what they're up to let them know what you're up to, and have meaningful conversations and rebuild relationships. You know, there are people who you would be surprised how quickly you can rebuild relationships with people who you haven't spoken with in years. Sometimes it's just one phone call and reminiscing about the past and suddenly you're reconnected and sometimes that turns into business and sometimes that just turns into rebuilding friendships that were dormant. Those are probably a few things you can try. One other thing I would suggest is maybe think about how to I'm not a big fan of this phrase, but I don't know a better one. You need to think about how to future proof yourself. And what I mean by that is, we all have different skill sets. And many of these skills are going to be automated, it's a fact. So you want to think about which skills you have, you want to put the most effort into, because they're most likely to continue to bring value in the next 10 or 20 years. If you can think in those terms, then I think you have a shot at a more sustainable business.
Paul Zelizer 30:29
great suggestions. Dennis, thanks so much. For let's do this, in a moment, I want to come back and talk about your various roles. Dennis, you are somebody who has various rounds, I've counted them, it's more than one I want to hear about them, who you're working with how they find you what some of the revenue streams are in a granular way that aware of printers is known for. Before we do that, I just want to take a pause and hear a word from our sponsor. Are you somebody who has a business that's about making the world a better place, and you want it to grow both in terms of helping more people, and in terms of your revenue? If so, I'd like to talk to you about podcasting for a moment. When I looked into podcasting, and who listens to podcast, three things really stood out. Number one, podcast listeners are what are known as early adapters. In other words, we hear about new things. And we try it really quickly. Number two, we're what's called natural leaders means the people around us at work in our faith community or in our community organizing efforts that we do, they come to see us as leaders, and they lean in and ask our opinions more than the average person. The number three podcast listeners make more money, not just a little bit, but quite a bit more money. So when you put those three things together, do you see where I'm going listeners? It's a really unique opportunity. If you'd like to learn how to leverage podcasting, whether it was a guest, Dennis been such a fabulous guest today, what do you want to be the host of your own podcast? Or do you want to do both? aware printers has a podcast success team where we'll help you every step of the way, learn how to leverage this powerful medium to grow your values based business. If you'd like to learn more, you can go to a where printers.com forward slash podcast dash success. And thank you to everybody in the podcast success team who sponsors this podcast. So David's in the second part of the show, we'd like to talk about putting on our entrepreneur glasses. So give us a sense like Dennis, various things that you're doing in the realm of business and helping small business like just give us the bucket? And then let's go into what's happening in each of those
Dennis Consorte 32:52
buckets. Oh, gosh, I do so many things. Yeah, how
Paul Zelizer 32:57
many buckets Do we need here?
Dennis Consorte 32:59
Probably a lot. So so what you might see publicly on my LinkedIn profile, if you were to look and I'd encourage people to do so connect with me on LinkedIn, I'm pretty open about connections, you'll see a few different roles. Of course, at Digital Comm. I'm a subject matter expert, where I talk about small business and startups and those kinds of things. And it, it really brings me joy to know that I have a platform at Digital comm where we can help small businesses to thrive. Because if
Paul Zelizer 33:33
somebody doesn't know what digital comm is, like, let's not assume anything, or what is
Dennis Consorte 33:37
it. It's a place where you can get tools to help your small business. We publish real reviews, we talk about web hosting ecommerce platforms, if you want to move your retail, business online, all those sorts of things, you can check it out, find great reviews on web hosting, and you can read a bunch of these surveys that we do every week.
Paul Zelizer 34:02
Great in your role there you're creating content, if I understand correctly writing some of the articles.
Dennis Consorte 34:09
Yeah, I work with the research and content teams in order to produce these surveys and articles that you see. So we have we we use a service called poll fish, which helps us pull together these surveys. And then we have a team that analyzes all of the data in order to turn it into something that humans can understand. So we take all that data, we turn it into really cool charts, graphs and articles, put them on the site. I review that content for accuracy and I add some opinion to it. And then we put it out into the universe.
Paul Zelizer 34:48
So we'll put a link in the show notes to digital comm and some of the examples of Dennis's work there. So what's another bucket?
Dennis Consorte 34:56
So another bucket is a company called one amp. One life. And they started as just, I don't want to say just they started as one of my clients for whom I do digital marketing work. And over time, that relationship turned into something much more significant because one in one life is a wellness platform that particularly creates a space for for people of color, who sometimes feel alienated from a lot of content that you might see in the wellness universe. So at one in one life, we create all of this amazing content, that that reaches people who don't normally see it. And and it just brings me tremendous joy to work with them on that, I want to say I probably started with them around 2019. And at the time, I was just, I was a contractor doing email marketing and search engine optimization. And as as I got to know them, and this, this actually happens often with me, people hire me as a marketer, and then they realize that I can help them with just putting different systems in place to help their companies. So over the last couple of years, I went from being a contractor who did SEO and email marketing, to being their editor in chief, where I was working with a team of writers and editors and, and the web team to produce as many as 100 articles and reviews per month in the wellness space. And most recently, I have become their chief operating officer. So this is a startup in the wellness space where we are funded, we have some we have some capital behind us. And so we're able to do a lot of things that I can't do on my smaller projects. So at the moment, we're actually in a capital raise right now we've got about half of it committed. And I'm going to be hiring another 20 or 30 people to help us grow this company. And, and really, the pattern that you'll start to see here is that one of the promises I made to myself when I rebooted was that I only wanted to work on projects that really mattered to me, and where I really felt like I could make impact in the world. And this is one of them. So that's pretty much what I do with one on one life.
Paul Zelizer 37:37
And listeners, you know, we've had numerous guests over our 200 I think tomorrow is going to be 17 episodes and four and a half years that we've talked quite a bit about what Dennis just mentioned, some of the inequalities and lack of representation in the wellness worlds. I'm so glad you're here, Dennis. And part of the great resignation that people are talking about, at least people who are looking a little deeper, is that some of the folks that are leaving at the highest rates are people of color, who are looking around organizational life and saying my well being my, who I am, what I'm trying to do here, what people like me care about in the world are not well represented, this company has time for me to go. And many have some wellness or mental health or social change part of what they're launching. It's a large portion of our listener base. If somebody is launching something as part of the great resignation, and it's in this wellness or mental health or positive impact space, what recommendations we talked about some general ones earlier, but specifically for new founders of color, any suggestions?
Dennis Consorte 38:57
I would say one of the one suggestion I can give you is to to assume positive intent, meaning not every person necessarily realized realizes that the environment that they have created is not the healthiest for you as an individual. So I would say first start by assuming positive intent, meaning that people don't intend to create a negative space. It's just sometimes that happens for whatever reasons. And if you apply that to every conversation you have, you can really move faster. And what I would also say is there are tons of people out there who wants to be very helpful to different communities. And if you seek those people out and you share your story, and your vulnerable you can, you can do so well for yourself and for the world. If I use if I use the, the company that we were just talking about as an example, right now, in our, in our rays were pitching many different investors. And a big part of that is really just telling our story. Because right now today, the company is not making a ton of money if they you know, there's there's some, but it's not a lot. And so really, the people that we're bringing in at this stage are people who just believe in our mission and what we're trying to achieve. So what I would say is, if you're starting a business, particularly in the wellness space, make sure that you've got your story nailed down, you want to be able to tell your story, explain your why. Right, very, very important, why you decided to start this business, and show potential investors or customers the value that you can bring them if they become part of your community.
Paul Zelizer 41:15
Thanks so much for that. And then another bucket. You have you also told me, I'm not really looking for many clients in this busy, right. But you do Do you have your own marketing consultancy? Right? Tell us a little bit about that.
Dennis Consorte 41:32
Yeah, so I have, I have a handful of clients. And they're all very different types of companies. And I like variety. I feel like I probably should start to specialize a little bit more, because usually what happens is people bring me in, and then I end up doing more things, not fewer things. So I have to work that out. But I have a number of different clients. At concert, a marketing, I'll tell you about a couple of them. One of them is a small business. And when I say small, I mean like, like eight figures, small, eight figures. And they, they actually do really well right now because they they install awnings in people's homes, and restaurants. And so what they're doing in this pandemic is they're creating outdoor space, where up until recently, a lot of businesses just they had limitations on how many people they could have in a space. So it was really good for them to to have that market. And it was good for me because I felt like you know what, I can actually help all of these small businesses create more outdoor space so that they can continue to serve more customers at their restaurants or wherever else, by helping this company grow and get their message out. I actually get a lot of joy out of this project, particularly because the company has been around for a while. And so they have some old systems in place, that could be a lot better. And the good news is that the executive team is very open to new ideas. And so I've had the opportunity to put systems in place to make their business better for them, for their employees and for their customers. Another client I have is a a small public company. And what they do is investing education in the real estate space. So it's it's a platform where people can learn the business of real estate, and learn how to acquire property without necessarily being a millionaire or billionaire to start with. So imagine giving people the tools in order to do the same kind of investing that much wealthier people are able to do that. That's what we're working on there. And then there are other clients too. But those are some of the interesting projects I can talk about.
Paul Zelizer 44:27
Thanks for that then. So it's you and your network. People at Digital calm and your colleagues at one in one like is your feeling into this great resignation. And no, we're still trying to figure out what the new normal is, but it's not quite as uncertain as it was 18 months ago, I guess we're settling into whatever this new normal is and is going to go into what are some of the things that you're thinking about in your network or thinking about In terms of the world of work, you use the word future proofing like, what should somebody who wants to pay attention be thinking about, as a result of the great resignation and all the changes we've seen over the past 18 months in the workforce,
Dennis Consorte 45:16
I would say, you should think about how to de centralize your life. As much as possible. I know, it's, it's a little weird. But think about how connected we are virtually because of technology, and how you're not tied to a physical location. So if you're an entrepreneur just starting out, you don't necessarily have to think about Oh, shoot, I should get some office space and hire a bunch of people who come to the office every day. Instead, think, in terms of decentralizing that business, you may not necessarily need to have full time employees, you may find that if you work with, with contractors, it can be better for them and for you, because they get flexibility, they will generally get a higher rate of pay for the amount of time they put in, and they can produce really good results for you. So if you build your network and think in terms of how to decentralize your company, that that can go a long way. You know, I actually, I forgot your question. There is something else I wanted to do your
Paul Zelizer 46:32
answer, again, the key, somebody who's want paying attention with all the changes we've had as a result of COVID. And the disruptions in the workforce in the past 18 months? What What should we be thinking about?
Dennis Consorte 46:46
Yeah, you know, what else we should be thinking about is, what are the tools we need to have in order to function in this new environment? So most people know about zoom, or Google meat or whatever communications platform you use, but I would say, take it a step further. And you could even take the model of the office and think about how to apply it digitally. So for example, I just had a conversation with someone where they're like, Well, you know, I get zoom, and you have these meetings. But what about those random conversations you have at the watercooler that just come up organically throughout the day? So okay, let's think for a moment, what is the digital equivalent of the watercooler. Maybe it's a platform like slack or WhatsApp, or signal, or any of the real time chat platforms that exists so that you have your, you have your set meetings, on your video platforms. And then you have your water cooler chat on slack or whatever else, right, so so think about those kinds of systems in parallel them to the world that exists today, what kinds of tools can serve in similar functions?
Paul Zelizer 48:09
Dennis, you've given us so much of your time and good thinking, I'm incredibly grateful. And I don't want to be respectful of your time or listeners. So as we start to wind down, and you're thinking about entrepreneurship, in your own case, and with these incredible clients that you're working with, what are some of the things on your mind going forward in the realm of more meaning and values based entrepreneurship? Like, what are you thinking about personally, with these great clients, like one on one, what, what some of the conversation there about how you and companies like that are wanting to grow or navigate going forward from here?
Dennis Consorte 48:53
One thing that a lot of startups and small businesses and even bigger companies often overlook, is they often forget to revisit their mission, their vision and their core values. And so I would say that it's a good idea to periodically revisit those things and and have group meetings, where you talk with your team and say, is this is this still our mission? Or does it need to change? Why are these core values so important to us? What is our vision for the next three, five or 10 years, revisit those things with your team and give them an opportunity to participate and even reshape some of that thinking?
Paul Zelizer 49:43
Such a fabulous example Dennis and I literally just been working on redoing the aware printers, core values, or at least looking at them again, I'll give a very simple example. One of our core values was language does self care that if we want to make an impact in the world, we kind of be paying attention to human we're bringing to the conversation, if we're all burned out, probably not going to make a great impact. And this was literally in the past week, change the language of that from self care to well being. Same intention, but self care implies it's something I do myself. And then there's a way in which I think a pandemic has impacted me where I'm not just thinking about my own well being, but also like, how we care for each other. The research on masks, right? It protects other people around me, if I were to have some COVID exposure, that I'd be less likely to get somebody else sick. And I so we changed the name of core value and a little bit of the description from self care to well being as a result of like, where I think we're going as a company. So I just wanted to say thank you for saying that. And here's a real world example that I was literally working on in the past 48 hours.
Dennis Consorte 51:01
Yeah, yeah, you know that that stuff is so important. And, and once you rethink those things, you also want to apply them. So whenever you hire new people to join your team, don't just think about whether they can do the job. Right? You also want to think about number one, is this an environment where they're going to be happy? And number two, how well do their core values align with the core values of the company? And if there's enough overlap there, then you've got to win.
Paul Zelizer 51:33
Dennis, thank you so much for being on the show. It's just been a fabulous conversation.
Dennis Consorte 51:37
This was so much fun. Paul, I really appreciate the time. And thank you again. Again, if people want to find me, just look me up on LinkedIn, Dennis concert day, or check out digital COMM
Paul Zelizer 51:50
And we'll put a link Dennis's LinkedIn profile digital comm one on one, some information about the great resignation, etc, etc, all in the shownotes. So before we go, just a quick request or an invitation Actually, we love listener suggested topics and guests. So if you have an idea of a topic that you think we haven't done a good job at or haven't covered at all, and you've got an idea, please go to our website, go to the contact page. And we have three simple criteria, we try to be really transparent about what we're looking for, and what's a fit. So take a look at those. And if you say yeah, I think this is really a fit, please send it on in we love when our listeners do that. For now, I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care and these intense times. And thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.