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Growth Strategy For Small Business Tips, Tricks, and Secret With Danna Olivo

Herbert Innocent

Hi everyone and welcome to the virtual entrepreneur the title for today's interview his growth strategies tips, tricks and secrets. An Interview with Danna, Olivo.



And the aim of today's interview is to help all the entrepreneurs in our audience to understand how they're going to build a business around, so, so they can build their infrastructure around their business products and service success, offering. So if you're new to this podcast a very warm welcome, my name is Herbert innocent, and today I am talking with the growth strategy expert, Danna, Olivo, about the tips tricks and secrets that every entrepreneur needs to shortcut their way to success with building and growing their businesses and getting those great results faster. So welcome, Danna, Olivo.


Awesome, awesome. As you all know, Donna Olivo is a well-known expert subject matter, on the subject matter of growth strategies, especially, she's helped tonnes and tonnes of entrepreneurs grow and scale their businesses, and she has kindly agreed to join us on this interview to share with us cool tips tricks and secrets that any entrepreneurs can use to really accelerate towards getting the results and helping them build the infrastructure around their product and services for success, offering. So for all offering for success. And so, Danna, Olivo thank you again for joining us on this interview with the virtual entrepreneurs, we're gonna jump right in. And as I always say my first set of questions are gonna be around your background and experiences in the field of growth strategy so that the entrepreneurs in the audience can understand who you are where you're coming from, and how you relate to where they are right now which is really key in helping them take those actions. And then what we do is we'll jump into the cool stuff which are the tips tricks and secrets about growing the businesses online, so that the audience, entrepreneur in the audience can understand what really they can start doing right now, and where are the cool. What are the cool simple steps that they can take towards getting where they really want to go. And so, with that said, I'm going to go right in. Are you ready, awesome, awesome, awesome. So could you tell us a little bit about yourself in terms of your education background, And as well as experiences in growing businesses,


entrepreneurship,


my expertise


will give you a little bit of a background.

I have about 35 years in the architectural, engineering and construction market. Working with every market is knowing at the peak of the recession that was worldwide. I was laid off in one of the largest construction management firms. And at that time, I decided I was not going to get back into what I was doing, because it just really wasn't a lot of opportunities there, and took myself into Brazil, because Brazil was the only country out of recession, faster than anybody else. And so I spent about four and a half years building relationships between US companies that wanted to break into the Brazilian market because they had just won the awards for both the 2014 FIFA game,



and wanted to create my own job,

Working younger, primarily, between the US

recession. And that is a market that me, my company name.

We rebranded it. When I came back.

I had a lot of people who knew me before coming to me starting my own business. Figure out what


he can and in the process of working with those companies. I realise that most of them, although they had a good product or service. They did not know how to build a business.


Using my expertise, they developed a programme called the market, which explains the infrastructure as a successful business is built around the human body is basically what it is. When.


When you look at the human body as a part of the body. The heart is the why you are in business. Why are you doing what you do. That's, that's what drives

are all your strategic planning processes your systems, even your product or service offering.

Yeah. When you think about it apart, operate separately, within the human body. Now they need each other. No They need each other. And that's the same thing with business.



Think about it, you need both the part of business, as well as the brain,

your marketing message through the veins of the body or the marketing panel.

The body, which is your avatar it's your ideal question.

You know

what they're in with everything is the soul, which is you.

Yes, you set the culture. Yes. And what does this mean. This means that in order for us to attract those customers.


All of these features engaging.

They need to be working together in order to bring those customers.

Otherwise, there will be no passion. And then there's no

relation to education. Okay, I like I said I like to build businesses.


Realise that I didn't know what I didn't know.

And with that

database management, and marketing.

And what I learned by going back, is what I've learned today.

A lot of things I did not know.

This is where a lot of small solo entrepreneurs with small micro businesses.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, I think you've touched a very big point there, which is, I think, speaking to every entrepreneur who has really ever, who has actually ever started, any more than one business which is, it takes a while to know how much you just don't know about business, and by the time you do realise that I think it's a, it's a, it really is a realisation that you know there is, it's accurate to say that there's a heart and the mind and then there's also just how much we don't know how those work together in our businesses to bring us where we want to go so I like the analogy and I also love that, you know, I had someone once say to me, you know, we learn from our failures and then when we succeed it's and learning from our successes.


And so that's a really powerful message there for every intrapreneur that I want to thank you for reminding us and, you know, to keep us going because sometimes we get discouraged this thing century. And so

what happens when you think about it, you know, here in the US. I don't know about the rest of the world but you know, but I think it's fairly close. But here in the US.

We found a billing rate of about.

65%, a year.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The funding report stays because they don't have the funding they don't have a management team.

What a boils down to we don't know what they don't. Yeah, education, knowledge.


Absolutely.

As far as I'm concerned, in my philosophy, education. Yes,

absolutely, I, I personally believe that it's, it starts with knowing what you're doing and even if you don't know you're gonna learn, you know, you, you push yourself and learn through that process, because it's a process. It's not a, you know, you learn one day and you know everything it's it's it's a process so I absolutely believe that, you know, Virgin microentrepreneurs, we were so many. Absolutely.

You don't need to know everything you need to know enough about everything so that you understand what is going on, what, how can we because you still need that control over your business. If you, if your forte, or if your strength is not in finance or in accounting.

Yes.

Somebody.

If you're hired somebody oversees and help you with the strategy.

Firewall virtual assistant, implement.

Yeah.

You've got to play up your strengths. Absolutely.



I agree 100% It's like one of one of my meant always said, you know, you have to hire someone else who knows how to do it because they're probably going to do a better job than you anyway. And that way you have a team of two who are focused on what they know, rather than trying to carry you know half of this and then half of this and struggling your way. So, obviously, you know, you are the right experts for us in terms of understanding how, you know the growth strategies and how to grow our businesses, and what I want to do next is I want to shift our focus so that we can jump into the code tips and tricks and secrets but before I go there I wanted to ask you this question which has been on my mind. Did you have a personal mentor yourself in terms of, you know, learning to grow your businesses and all that.



I've had several as a strategist. I've worked with a lot of people, and you know I've had other strategists will be with me.

What I found in working with some of these other strategy is didn't understand what they were saying, Okay, right, because most of your larger strategic companies.


They do, they speak in a language that is over their heads.


More than, you know, myself as a manager or a micro-business owner would understand me myself, what I have engaged in this is because I had a mental piece you one time we were both serving on a panel, answering questions. And afterwards, people do find me but then he says, we need an African.


Yeah.

If you don't know this term that's fine.

You know you're.

And I said what, you know what you're talking about,

you know, that's, that's a big compliment.

He said you know as much as myself, as any other strategist.

They used to deliver in a different way, in a way that small and micro business.

Yes. All right.

Ever since then, I have not doubted what I could deliver.

Keep in mind.

Yes, critical, because all of us have

experienced what their expectations are. I can't tell you how many people have worked with other strategies, if you will, between

strategy outlines, you know,

The way I work with managers is not only do you learn.

But I engage you. By the time you're done, you know, and explain how we do that by the time you're done, you will have a customised business.

Whether you're an existing business whether you're a napkin page startup, you have a plan for your business, because I'm a firm believer. You can learn on one or more, It sits on the shelf. Yes, absolutely.


I'm forcing you to engage and start doing it right away.

Absolutely.

That's. And then the only other mentor to me is less important.

Yeah, that's a big metaphor, all of us.

That's a really big mentor.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that also the idea of having a plan really helps the business moving forward.


It's crazy the amount of people who start without a plan, and then I mean from the stats, it's, it's like trying to go to a place where you have no idea where to go to end it. Even though the idea is that you want to get to there, you need, even if you don't follow a plan you need a plan to guide you so that you can know at least, this is not where I want to end up, you know, because everything changed it adapts so hearing you're talking about the idea of plan, having a concrete plan having a concrete strategy of where to like your marketing strategy right you need a marketing strategy you need a sales strategy you need to be exactly


shying away from strategy.

But the fact of the matter is there are five stages.


Case one of the tagline for my company for myself is, this is perfect especially.


Think about your business. In terms of a try.

First, your business, you're gonna grow that business, there's five stages is the seed stage that's, that is when you find out you're pregnant, and you're excited and you're planning all this stuff, You're going to do for you, you're trying

to grow everything that is your, your vision state, which is the thing.

Okay, in the terms of a child, it's a matter of their education is good for you in terms of business. The next phase is going out and researching your competitors.

Is your child going to be friends with all of this are people willing to pay the important to make a difference, out of your product or service, third stage is the Build, build stages okay you've gathered all your information, you've prepared your child to go to school. And now what you're doing is you're building that building systems, methodology, you're building the rules for your child.



You're giving them the resources that they need.

Yes. So, the funding.

Okay the funding stages now that you built the business. You know how much it will cost for that child to go to college for continuous is the same thing with business, by the time we get to the fourth stage, you have an idea of what is going to actually grow that business here.

So this will be like.

Just to clarify, when you say that cost, I'm assuming this will be like the cost of acquiring customers, cost of all those costs associated with not just acquiring customer but to actually take to the next step, am I correct in that.

I understand what is gonna cost market, revenue, what's it going to cost for you to hire the staff. Okay.



What's it going to cost if you're going to be introducing a new vertical or horizontal. Yes. Yeah. What are those costs will be because at the funding stages when you're going to go. You're unique to up to the funding stage you can sell funding. Yes, yeah bootstrapping funding.

By the time you get to the final stage is that regular income from an investor have been the interest but you need to have a plan. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, your business plan



is written with them in.

And then you move into the growth stage which is where most existing companies.

Okay, they think that once they break even, and they start making profit. That is the end of the project. Yeah, because if you just continuously look at the market, and look at what the competition is doing within the industry, looking at how can I improve, improve my systems and methodology, better customer service, value,



because that's what's going to get you through this. The feeling that they ultimately get.

Exactly.

You know they do great in the beginning in attracting customers and things like that, but they hit a ceiling of, You know, sometimes 50 75,000 A year or something.

Yeah, yeah.


Yeah. Every single key performance indicators in your company, rely on each other, is that when you're finding your marketing your, all of them.


All of that.

You may not be gaming.

The park the purpose isn't viable.

Yeah.

All of that is, you are so lovely, so lovely. That is, that is, that gives me a whole lot of picture in terms of the analogy in terms of the birth, as well as you know, growth because I think you mentioned something there that goes a lot, and noticed for a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owner and that is a growth strategy that is something that really goes flies over the head because once you're generating revenue, you're like, Oh, I've made it. No, not yet.

You must continue to feed, even if it's even if your baby's not an adult, they still need to feed it in order to keep growing it's not the end, it's, it's a, it's, it's, so,


yes.

Yeah.


And your thumbs up, remember, remembering that the vision is how your company or your business will impact.

If not, the customers or what kind of impact are you going to make.

When the war.


Because I work with small micro businesses.

We make it so easy to start a business in the US, we don't make it easy to save

a lot of the problems with the W is to do with what we call the second pages that are already making about half a million dollars in revenue.

And then the government will come in and help support my long term vision is to ultimately get a bill that really allows micro, small business owners.

If they show that they have education that will introduce them to what they need to know in order to doing that, they will be entitled to say incentives or government incentives, maybe some money actually, or any of this stuff so that is how I'm going to have a positive impact on the number of


when you think about it. Since COVID started. There's been an 83% increase in new business applications.

So, looking at those new businesses.

Yeah, yeah. Are you prepared. Exactly, exactly.


Yes, there's there's a lot of things that, that the strategic planning, you know, growth planning, can, can really help businesses, avoid those hurdles that they run. But again, knowledge, and what I've done since COVID is before three COVID I was doing a lot of what I was doing, either through group coaching event. events, you know, over, you know COVID Pretty much, yeah.



Always wanted to take all intellectual property online through an academy that was specifically dedicated to small micro business


for 15 to 18 months, that's what I did, and we've developed, that moment, an online learning academy for small micro businesses, give them the education that they need.


Awesome. That is awesome. I have a small question that I've been wondering in terms of all this because it's a lot of experience to draw from and I was wondering, is there a tip that you wish someone had shared with you in terms of growth strategy and growing your business when it first started out,

one. Oh, I don't know about.

There's a lot of them I wish I had no.

I think the biggest thing that I have learned.

If someone had told me was the concept of customer journey.

The concept of customer experience because what that does is it brings in everything that I teach.

When you think about it, the customer journey, does not stop with the sale. Yes, customer journey continues.


Not only customer service but look at how many touch points for a, a prospect engaged with your company, your website, your social media, your accounting department, your contracts.

Your sales department.

Your, your potential customer come in to so many different ways in contact with your company. Yes, you, as a business owner, need to understand what are their expectations, everyone.


You need to be able to meet those expectations without them even realising you know what they're looking for. Yes.

Yeah, and by meeting those expectations what ends up happening is they are a completely satisfied customer.

And on the back end, they end up becoming your raving fans, and your Ultimate Sales Force. Okay, Apple.

Apple computers, look at Amazon.

Why do you think they have such a large customer base.

You know what, they deliver consistently on the products that they buy those products outpace any other PC products.

And I'm kind of biassed because I'm a raving fan

meet my expectations.

That's it.



Customers.

Those customers are what's going to help you grow. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Yeah. That is awesome. That is really awesome. And I agree, I think there's a lot of, there's a lot to be said about where your customer meets you, at, and sometimes you have to be prepared to deliver what they expect because they don't know they don't know you can have them unless you show them you can help them right, you have to meet them there and be there, you have to show up. So whether it's a landing page or website or whatever it is you have to show up prepared to deliver what they expect of you. Yeah, that is a very powerful point that we forget, we put all these pages up, and hope that you know they'll catch them, but it really has to be strategize, you have to think through it, it has to be planned. Exactly, exactly.


That's what I've been doing for the last weekend, pulling together all kinds of funnel videos and everything because we're getting ready to do our go to launch strategy.

Awesome.


I'm talking with my digital marketing specialist this afternoon and we have to start strategizing on how we're going to drive and build that leverage an expert, bringing the digital marketing, yeah.

Yeah. And do all this planning and everything so it's critical that as a business owner that you realise what your strengths are and what you're not. Yes, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

That is good stuff that is absolutely, um, in terms of value for new business owner or small business owner the understanding and taking action in these areas really has its own proven. What do you call that results, you know, in terms of helping you become more efficient at getting those customers, capturing them but also converting them into long term fans and even repeat clients. Now one thing I wanted to ask was, is there something that maybe you discovered like a cool trick.

You figured out through your experience and learning in terms of growth strategy and but but also growing your business, that would really help entrepreneurs in our audience, so that they can stop struggling daily as a business owner who wants to grow a successful business.

And that's one of the things, one of the things that I, I have to deal with yet more micro business owners understand.


They don't understand it until they have somebody in their corner, and can be unbiased, about the conversation, because as business owners, what we struggle with is the fear of failure. Yes, always struggle with the fear.

And we can't go to ourselves with our girlfriends boyfriends, whatever you want to call it, we can't go to them because we don't want to feel those.

You're starting some kind of issues or whatever, they don't quite understand it.

Same thing with employees, we can't let the employees, or our partners know how we're feeling


personal coach comes in. Even with the academy, what we've got built into the academy is an accountability and a mastermind programme because you learn by others. Yes. Why do you got me on this, but the experiences of the accountability programme which is the coaching that we offer all our subscribers.

This is in a private Facebook page this is where you can engage with others help you get through some of those


other things, is a mastermind. I would highly recommend getting involved in.


Because what you're doing is you are basically putting in somebody who can give you some idea, and hold you accountable. What you're going to do.

So there's those, I think those are the best the biggest tip I can give anybody who was an entrepreneur, and trying to operate or build a business with


somebody that you can rely on that's unbiased and not afraid to tell you, when you're wrong. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah.

You have to understand what your vision is. Yes, okay. If your vision is big, understand that it's not going to happen is detainment.

It's going to happen in phases. And as long as you keep that in the back of your mind.

You will grow on a regular basis, you will grow substantially even clinics,

but keeping in mind what's your vision. Yeah. That is a really cool tip I think accountability and mastermind.

It's, it's, it's mindset right you need to put yourself in a position where you have the right mindset to take your business where it is to where you want it to be. And sometimes you are not born, actually we are never really born with this mindset you need to be with people who have done it, you need to be surrounded by people who are doing the same thing to get motivated inspired. So that's something that I, I personally also believe.

And I'm glad that it's, it's the one question because if we forget. We forget as entrepreneurs we forget we always we are so focused on the product or this or that shiny new thing. We forget hey you need to be doing what's making money for your business, you need to be focusing on your strategy you need to be focusing on your vision so you can grow it. So yeah, hearing you bring in all this together is really bringing us home. Now, we are coming up towards the end of the interview and I wanted to ask you one question in terms of secrets do you have any little secret that you found that every entrepreneur could really benefit from in terms of growing that business that you've learned through, You know, growth strategies and all that.

One thing I've learned is I'm terrible at keeping


architecture, engineering construction market, you know, one of the things that I learned working first of all, in that market very male-dominated.

Males tend to keep everything close to the chest.


They're so afraid of competition, and they would tell me you know when I go out for

RFP meeting or something like that, They tell me. Don't tell anybody what we're doing, and


they know already what we're doing.


You're blind to that. And so that's, that's one of the thing that I would say get used to is there are no secrets to this.

There are no secrets. Unless you've protected IP or something like that really are no secrets because remember your competitors.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Way.

And gauging a value that is not being offered and that's that's the critical thing, Look for those gaps in the market. Yeah.

Perfect example, is the fact that with working with small and micro businesses, I found during my research, up there in the market, there is not a lot of data that is focused only on your solo entrepreneurs.

You know, we've got the Small Business Administration here.

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