Title: Transcript - Tue, 16 Apr 2024 10:31:07 GMT

Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2024 10:31:07 GMT, Duration: [00:16:58.58]

[00:00:02.20] - Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

[00:00:29.69] - Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Ari Squires of r s wires dot com. Ari, it's awesome to have you on the show.

[00:00:38.50] - Ari Squires

Thank you for having me.

[00:00:40.10] - Gresham Harkless

No problem. Super excited to have you on. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Ari so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Ari does not play any games when it comes to helping hungry entrepreneurs reach and surpass their profit goals. As a CEO of profit attraction brand management and marketing agency in Release the Change training retraining centers and retreats, Ari provides financial training for her clients using problem-solving, high-dollar product creation, as well as online and offline profit pro-profit strategies.

While being embraced by TV stars, film producers, celebrities, and CEOs, which include Kevin Harrington from ABC Shark Tank and business mogul Stedman Graham, her signature training programs, brand mastery, masterminds, and silent money have helped students attract millions and a multitude of paying fans, leads, investors, and sales, increasing their ROI through live events, relationships, offline sales, speaking, and consulting by using her pro profit attraction methods. As an award-winning film director and self-mastery trainer, Ari is devoted to the mission of helping entrepreneurs in six and seven-figure entrepreneurs who are in transition, create the lives and businesses they truly love. Ari, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

[00:01:49.59] - Ari Squires

Yes. Hello, community. Hello. Welcome. Welcome.

[00:01:52.70] - Gresham Harkless

Definitely super excited to come on in. The water's fine. So, I love everything you're doing. I've been privileged enough to share the stage with you and be on a radio station. So you're doing so many phenomenal things. So I wanted to to kinda wind the clock, and hear how things got started. Could you take us through what I call your CEO story when you get started with the business?

[00:02:12.69] - Ari Squires

Yeah. Oh my goodness. I've been an entrepreneur for over twenty years, right? I know I look I know I look only like I'm seventeen. Thank you. I know. But, yeah. I've been an entrepreneur for over twenty years, and so I've had a long journey. But I would say my biggest, real, like, having my real-life examples of entrepreneurship is when I owned and operated the dance and performing arts school in Stafford, Virginia, and then Fredericksburg, Virginia. And that was during the time that we met. And I ran and operated that for over ten years, and I loved it, but I wasn't a dancer. I was just a business you know, I just had a CEO mindset.

And I saw a need in my community where we needed, you know, culture, you know, African dance and hip hop and jazz and, you know, and so I saw a need and I was like, oh, this would be a good community to do something like this. So we ran successfully for over ten years, but then I got a little drained. Because when you're not operating in your passion, it does drain you. And you never want your business to become to feel like a job late. You know. No one wants to whether it's your business your job or your life, you don't wanna hate. Right? And so I started feeling myself becoming drained and stressed out. And so, people kept asking me, you know, how did you get started a business? I need help. Can you help me? So I just started doing these small ten people, business boot camps

[00:03:32.80] - Gresham Harkless

Mhmm.

[00:03:33.19] - Ari Squires

At my dance school, and I liked it. Like, I liked training people and teaching people what I knew, and how I became successful. And then they would take the ideas and the strategies and tips, and they would go out and create money from it or happiness or joy. And I was like, oh, this is kinda cool. So then I invested in a coach, a business coach, and she taught me everything she knew when it came to building a coaching and consulting business because I didn't know anything about that.

I knew how to build brick-and-mortar and sell products. Right? Like, actual, tangible products. And so it was amazing. And so here I am now, since two thousand thirteen, having, Proper Attraction Academy, which has helped so many entrepreneurs, you know, expand their brands. A lot of our clients are doctors, attorneys, you know, high high-end, like, known well-known people, and it's just been amazing. And I love I love I love just helping people create economic empowerment for themselves, their businesses, and their families. So that's the short story. Okay.

[00:04:28.60] - Gresham Harkless

No. I absolutely love that and I definitely appreciate you for for bringing that down. And I think what was coming to my mind is I feel like so many times we think I think there's a, you know, there's a time and a place for everything, and there's a beginning and an end. I think even with our businesses, like, having the opportunity to get that experience and be able to say, okay. I wanna move on to something else and have that kinda of a seamless transition into that is definitely huge. I think so many times we get caught up in, like, I have to do this for, you know, thirty years or but it may be that case, it may not be that case, and those kinda seeds, it sounds like, have helped you in being able to help out so many other people, generate that those profits.

[00:05:00.69] - Ari Squires

Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:05:02.60] - Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I know you touched on a little bit in some of the offerings and things and ways that people can kind of get help and support from you. Could you take us through your products and services and how you support the clients you work with?

[00:05:13.39] - Ari Squires

Yeah. Well, primarily, I do brand management. So I hadn't always done brand management. I was doing mainly just business marketing strategy, twelve-month mastermind. So I would take pretty much a new entrepreneur, and new means under three years, right, and help them find their way. But then I started realizing that entrepreneurs who have been in the game and who are already making six or seven figures need assistance too. And they started wanting me to manage their brands. Like I have one of my, clients, he's a doctor. And all he knows is about being a doctor. So he owns his own, practice. Right? So he has his own practice in Richmond, Virginia, but he wanted to become an author and speaker, but he didn't know anything about that genre.

So I help him brand himself, not just his website and his colors, but create a story, you know, and create a brand and position himself in that space using what he already is an expert in, which is in the medical field. Right? But then we tie in his spirituality, which is what he's teaching about is, you know, it's life it's life development coaching and speaking is what he's doing, but he's taking it from a medical aspect. So my products and services help people do that. Same thing I've been able to do, transition from one niche or one marketplace or one field of study or expertise to another where it all makes sense within the brand.

So that's what I do. And then, of course, I have other training as well for, entrepreneurs who may not be at six figures yet, but want to be are are are looking to create more wealth or scale, you know, distance themselves from their company because we don't always have to work in our companies either. Right? We can have we can build companies and have and have other people run them, which I can do with my book publishing company, and we are just the CEO. And so I do, live masterminds here in my home. And I do those three times to four times a year, and they're two-day masterminds. And I just literally it's only ten entrepreneurs at a time because it's really intense. And so I provide training, and I just give them everything I know within those two days and then assist them along their way afterward.

[00:07:19.80] - Gresham Harkless

So That's awesome. And I would definitely appreciate, you being able to do that in so many different ways. And I'm glad you, you know, you talked about, you know, the doctor because I think too that even if we've been in business for, you know, six, 07:30 years, whatever, we may not or we may have been working on that brand piece, and we may not understand what exactly that is. So while we may have been in business for ten years, maybe from a branding perspective, that's something that we still need help with. So I'm glad that you're able to kinda do that in so many different ways, depending on, you know, what the people are searching for. Mhmm.

[00:07:48.60] - Ari Squires

Yeah. Because your brand is your story. It's your message. It's how you're positioning your value, how you're positioning your equity in the marketplace so that people do wanna do business with you. And if they're not clear, as I'm sure you know, a confused buyer doesn't buy. Right? And so your brand is the message that you're putting out there, in connection to your products and services. So you can help more people.

[00:08:10.60] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And I imagine you probably find this with clients too that sometimes you don't realize that there are things I think sometimes when you hear brands, maybe you're thinking of the logo, you're thinking of the website. But as you talked about, about, there's so many different underlying, maybe even foundational things that you wanna be able to I don't wanna say control, but maybe, showcase so that people understand exactly who they're buying, what they're supporting, what makes them unique, and things like that.

[00:08:33.70] - Ari Squires

It actually is control, you know, because at the end of the day, that's what marketing is. Marketing is being remembered, you know, marketing is what people say about you, that's what your brand is, you know. So you want to control what your audience is saying about you. That's why it's important for us as entrepreneurs to establish five brand words within our brand. Because when they ask me about aggression, I have to say CEO. There's like five words that, you know, you want people to identify you. So when they asked me, you know, aggression, what does he do? You do control it. You don't want me to say what I think. You want me to say, you want you wanna control what I say to them so you have to consistently and constantly be putting out your brand message all the time.

[00:09:16.29] - Gresham Harkless

Interesting. No. I'm glad you broke that. you corrected me on that because I think you're absolutely right where sometimes we feel like we don't have that control, which is kinda whatever people say. But in reality, the repetition of the things that you're putting out of what you're standing for, what you're creating, speaks to your brand without you sometimes even realizing and making that connection, but your clients potentially definitely are. So, I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper, and I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. So this could be for yourself or your brand in your business, but what do you feel kinda sets you apart and makes you unique?

[00:09:46.60] - Ari Squires

I think I like to go against the grain when it comes to marketing and brand positioning in business period. I like to look around and see what my competitors are doing or what everyone else is doing in business online and offline. I like to see what they're doing and I like to create something that's totally different. Not trying to recreate the wheel, but just so that I stand out and that I'm more unique in my space and that people say, oh, I like I like that. That's different. But it still speaks to my audience. That's one of my secret sauces. And the other thing for me is that I'm pretty much the only person that's heavily teaching entrepreneurs how to market themselves and position themselves offline. Right? Even in this time, just yesterday, I secured a five-figure deal offline that I didn't create on social media. So you gotta create. Also, I have this thing, like you mentioned in my bio, this program called silent money. You know? And it's about building those relationships and creating and doing that marketing that I used to do twenty years ago before Facebook before everybody hopped online and started marketing their brands, which is a phenomenal thing. I do it

[00:10:52.29] - Gresham Harkless

Right.

[00:10:52.60] - Ari Squires

However, I learned that my audience is not online.

[00:10:55.10] - Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:11:06.20] - Ari Squires

Oh, gosh. No one wants me more. By not saying the word I can't. Like, that's huge for me. Like, even just in normal things I do in my personal life, we tend to just when we come across something that's a little challenging in our life or our business, the first thing we wanna say is I can't. You know what I'm saying?

[00:11:25.50] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah.

[00:11:25.79] - Ari Squires

And it's just this natural thing we start having as children. Right? And so for me, I always say, let me try. Right? Not how can not I can't, but let me figure out how can I.

[00:11:38.89] - Gresham Harkless

Awesome. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client around branding, or if you were to happen to be a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

[00:11:52.50] - Ari Squires

Wow. That's a really good question. Because there are so many. The first thing I thought to myself was my book title, honesty is a possibility, but that's too simple. Right? So a very important nugget. Wow. Go hard. Like, go harder. Like, push yourself. Let me rewind it back because we can't even push ourselves or go hard if we don't have a vision. Mhmm. You know? I and and, you know, I'm sure you've taken this I'm sure a lot of, your listeners have taken some business classes. I know I take business in college, and, you know, business 01:01 is the first thing we gotta establish is what is the vision for our company.

Right? Mhmm. So without vision, you're not you're just gonna be wandering around trying to figure things out. Right? But when you have that vision, then you have a little more focus. Right? So you know when something comes to you whether it fits, the vision or not. And a lot of entrepreneurs make that mistake. I see it so often on social media. Hey, who wants to be in my book anthology? They don't know anything about the book anthology. They don't know what knuckleheads are gonna be a part of it. They don't know anything. And they're like me Correct? Because they don't have a vision.

[00:12:59.29] - Ari Squires

Do you understand what I'm saying? There's no vision attached to their brand, their mission, their company, or even their own personal lives sometimes, which is really something they have I feel like we all, you know, people should work on. I would say that vision, and then when you have that vision, make sure that every single thing, every single opportunity, everything you do is in alignment with the vision. When you reach out to me, and my team, they're well aware of the vision. They know if I'm gonna say yes or no to this type of opportunity. And, of course, I said yes because it fits into the vision of assisting entrepreneurs to become more successful. Do you get what I'm saying? So Yeah. So that's that's the nugget. Stop doing everything because someone you know, because you see an opportunity. 

[00:13:43.39] - Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. Well, Ari, now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're all gonna have a different quote, unquote CEOs on the show. So, Ari, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:13:53.70] - Ari Squires

I love being a CEO. This I'm living my best life. Right? I'm living my best life. That's what it means to me. I get to do what I want. I get to, is it hard? Is it tough? No. It's not hard. It's not tough. It's challenging, but it's rewarding. A CEO to me is about, you know, creating the life, creating your reality. It's something one of my good friends said, creating your reality. That's what a CEO life is for for me, period.

[00:14:22.10] - Gresham Harkless

Ari, Truly appreciate that definition. I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and listeners know, and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you. Get a copy of your book, and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

[00:14:35.79] - Ari Squires

Sure. Absolutely. Well, as you said earlier, I am easy to find. My website, rsquire dot com. I'm actually on there a lot where you could chat with me live, where you could ask me questions. I'm on there. Social media, Ari Squire speaks as well. I'm always sharing different tips, and sometimes I'm having a lot of fun just being myself. But at the end of the day, my advice to CEOs always is just stay connected to who you are stay connected to your audience, and make sure that you're providing the best customers customer experience that they can possibly experience. But I love what I do. I love helping people. A couple of things I have coming up are right now, I'm actually I can share this. Right?

[00:15:14.39] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:15:15.00] - Ari Squires

Okay. I just have, I'm I'm establishing the Profit Attraction Academy Collective, where I'm bringing on coaches. Coaches of all different niches, life coaches, leadership coaches, LinkedIn coaches, all coaching, math, whatever, branding, marketing coaches. And I'm creating this collective because I have a lot of clients that come to work with me that I either don't have time to bring on my roster or they're looking for something that I don't offer and so I'm just sending them to people in my collective and I'm collecting a little commission. But we're all working collectively to help entrepreneurs, so if you're interested in something like that please contact me, send me an email, DM me, info at r e squares dot com. I'm looking to bring on some, really, passionate coaches who who want to do this for a long time. So that's that's pretty much it.

[00:16:04.89] - Gresham Harkless

Nice. I definitely appreciate that, Ari. We will have the links and information in the show notes, but I definitely appreciate, you, not only living your best life but also reminding us of how we can do the same too and the steps that it takes to happen. So, definitely love everything you're doing. You know, happy to, of course, have you on the show, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

[00:16:22.60] - Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.