IAM1406 – Founder Helps Clients Build Trust, Get Seen and Build Bold Brands

Aaron is the founder and CEO of Bold Strategy Group, a nationally recognized public relations and marketing firm that helps its clients build trust, get seen, and build bold brands. It is his delight to help others share their greatest work with the world while living a life on purpose. Aaron is a veteran U.S. Marine officer and is active in promoting mental health and veterans issues in the community. He is the host and producer of the podcast, America’s Entrepreneur, a podcast that educates, entertains, and inspires others in their professional journeys.

• CEO Story: Started as a side hustle and a passion project. Then Aaron had the opportunity to expand his offerings from website building to social media management and marketing. He grew his network as he expanded his service to his clients.
• Business Service: Public relations. Deliver outcome. Help produce podcasts. Social Media Marketing.
• Secret Sauce: Offers money-back guarantee. Deliver a tangible outcome for the clients.
• CEO Hack: Get mentors – people who inspire you or people who love you and who want the very best for you. Read books, mentioned:  Go Giver | Go-Giver Sell More by Bob Burg – The Way to Approach People and Apprehension; Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud – Great Personal Debt. book.
• CEO Nugget: Allow the business entity to grow. Repurpose your capital to help grow your team, and help grow your tooling. Put the business capital in a separate bank account.
• CEO Defined: You are the quarterback coach, to empower, equip, and resource your team. You need to have a vision of where you are going. Help people feel connected to what they are doing and why it matters – deliver a purpose that they can rally around.

Website: boldstrategygroup.us

LinkedIn: aaronspatz

Youtube: americasentrepreneur

Instagram: aaron__spatz

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Transcription

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00:22 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business? From successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs listening to a long, long, long interview. If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share precisely the information you're searching for. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:49 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Aaron Spatz of Bold Strategy Group. Aaron, super excited to have you on the show.

00:58 – Aaron Spatz

Gresh, thanks so much, man.

01:00 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, excited to have you on as and fellow podcaster and doing so many phenomenal things. So what I wanted to do before we jumped in is read a little bit more about Aaron so you can hear about some of those awesome things. Aaron is the founder and CEO of Bold Strategy Group, a nationally recognized public relations and marketing firm that helps its clients build trust, get seen, and build Bold brands.

It is his delight to help share their greatest work with the world while giving and living a life on purpose. Aaron is a veteran U.S. Marine officer. Thank you for your service. And active in promoting mental health and veteran issues in the community. He is the host and producer of the podcast America's Entrepreneur, a podcast that educates, entertains, and inspires others in their professional journeys. Aaron, excited to have you on the show again. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:46 – Aaron Spatz

Absolutely, Gresh. And again, thank you so much for the invite.

01:49 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for doing all the phenomenal things that you are doing and accomplishments that you've been able to reach. So I guess what I want to do to kick everything off was rewind the clock, hear a little bit more about how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

02:02 – Aaron Spatz

Cool. Okay. Well, it started off almost accidentally. It started off really as a side hustle, a passion project. I was really probably seven years ago or so just doing websites on the side, making a few extra bucks and good work, traveling around, and had an opportunity to expand those offerings from websites into all the traditional stuff. I mean, there are a billion firms out there that do Social media management and marketing and all those things.

But that was really how I was able to, to take one little thing I was doing, had a couple of scenarios work, work themselves out where I'd networked with folks, they'd gotten to know me a little bit with some of the little bit of work I'd done and then started to kind of take on a little bit more. And so that's really how it kind of got started and how it grew.

02:52 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love to hear that. Especially with something like marketing and public relations. It's still. Some people might feel it's kind of like in its emphasis as far as what it's going to end up being. So it sounds like in the way that your business was growing, it sounds like the industry was probably also growing in the same way as well.

03:09 – Aaron Spatz

I mean, it's changed a lot. I mean, I originally like, I didn't, I wasn't even considering public relations and podcasting, to be honest. Like in those early days, it really is, it's just been the evolution of the company, the evolution of the idea. Things that are working, things that are not working, and really. And I think we probably cover it later on. But just building a, building a business that does not depend on me doing everything. I mean I do a lot, don't get me wrong, but doesn't depend on me doing everything from 6 am to 3 or 4 in the morning.

03:41 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. And I think a lot of times being able to have the ego to believe that you can build something and create something, but understanding that you can grow if you're doing all the things from 6 am to 3 am, it feels like it's spending those 25 or 24 hours. It feels like in a day there's always a limit.

04:00 – Aaron Spatz

Yeah, absolutely.

04:01 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to drill down a little bit more and hear a little bit more about how you serve the clients that you work with. Could you take us through a little bit more on how you're making that impact and a little bit more about your podcast as well?

04:13 – Aaron Spatz

Sure. Okay. So on the business side, we really do focus on public relations. And so what I tell folks is in best case scenario, we're going to help you sell your book out, you're going to 10x your revenue, you're going to have appointments for the next six months nonstop. Right. That's what we all wish and pray and hope happens. In the worst-case scenario though, however, you're left with a trail, a portfolio of media successes. And so I really pride myself in hiring really Top-notch professionals that join my team. And so we take really, really, really solid care of our clients.

In fact, one of the things I think sets us apart is we, I mean, we even offer a money-back guarantee, right? So if we haven't if we haven't fulfilled our obligations, because I'm sure, you know, this Grush, just as much as most people do, is like in marketing and other related activities, you could spend tens of thousands of dollars really quickly and wonder, where the heck did my money go? Right. And so with public relations successes, we want to deliver a tangible outcome for you. And so if you get it, that's what we're being paid to do, right? We're not being paid to just pray that something happens.

And so that's really the emphasis of it. We do help other people produce their podcasts, and I'm still involved in website development, and social media management. Some of our PR clients kind of ask us to take care of everything. They're like, okay, I need you to, you know, I need you to help get my message out, but I don't have the time or really, I don't really want to manage all my social media assets. Can you help me generate content and kind of steward that community a little bit for me? And so that's kind of where we go there. And then you asked also Gresh, about the podcast that the podcast started in 2020.

It was originally called the Veterans Business Podcast, which is all focused on military veterans. And then because I don't have enough on my plate already, I started another podcast called the DFW Business Podcast because I live in the Dallas Fort Worth area. After realizing that, again, too much to do, and not enough time, I collapsed both shows into one and rebranded it as America's Entrepreneur. And so that right now that's been a weekly show.

We're probably going to crank the tempo up on that to maybe two to three episodes per week. And really, I think similar to what you do, Gresh, I mean, we really want to talk to other people that have had not just the success stories, but, man, what are some things that you've learned? How have you skinned your knee and grown and developed through the process and how would you do it over again? Type, type of questions. And so that's been a true, a true delight to do.

06:43 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. Likewise, I find the same in the podcast and the phrase, I think it was Edison who said success leaves clues. And probably the opposite of success also leaves clues as well. So when you skin your knee a couple of times, you start to learn some of those lessons, which are always good to share. But I love kind of like the I'm going to use the word holistic nature of the work that you do. It sounds like.

Because you talked about the PR piece, but I think I feel like gone are the days where business in general, but definitely marketing and pr, advertising, all those aspects are silos. And I feel like, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, that those things overlap up. By providing those different services and offerings to people, you're helping them by doing their social media. It sounds like you're helping them with your PR by helping out with their website, you're helping them out with their social media, and vice versa. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit.

07:31 – Aaron Spatz

Sure.

07:32 – Gresham Harkless

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?

07:40 – Aaron Spatz

Okay. There's a lot. I'm a huge fan of personal development. I think entrepreneurship forces you to grow personally and professionally. Otherwise, you're just going to shrivel up and suck your thumb in the corner in the fetal position. I mean, honestly. And so there are several hacks. Gresh. I'll rapid-fire through several of them. So one is to get mentors. I know everybody gets tired of hearing that advice. Like, oh, my gosh, I'm tired of hearing about mentors. Everybody talks about freaking mentors. I'm serious. Get some people around you that. I mean, if they're people that you aspire to be, and maybe you got to pay a little bit of a tax to get to that person.

Okay, great. Or two people that just love you, want the very best for you, and want to see you succeed, and you've seen them have some success and maybe a different one. A different industry. Right. And so I have people that. I mean, I have a guy, a dear friend of mine who's probably 20 to 30 years older than me, who has been wildly successful, but he's worked in supply chain management. I'm nowhere near supply chain management, but he has a different perspective. He can speak things into me as we're working through things.

And I have a small little board of people that it's very informal that I meet with regularly to go through that. So that's one. Two is. I mean, you've got to read a couple of books that I would recommend especially for entrepreneurs that are trying to grow. I am not the natural sales guy. And that's been. That's been a struggle. And there's a book. There's a guy that I follow religiously now and a tremendous human being. His name is Bob Berg. He's written a book called The Go-Giver. That's. It's in red. It's a red cover. He's written four or five of them differently. Like a slightly different title with a different book cover.

And so the red one is like the classic one, the green one, which is called Go-Givers Sell More. I would legit read that book probably every 90 days. And it's short enough that a marine like me can read it that fast. It's a phenomenal book. It talks about just. I mean, and it's so easy to read Grush. Like, it will literally take you maybe two hours to read. But it hits hard. And it really hits me in a way where I'm like, okay, the way that I'm approaching people, the way that I'm talking about what I'm doing, the apprehension, like that internal anxiety that maybe I feel when I'm wanting to ask somebody for their business, how do I get over that?

It covers all that beautifully. And there are even a couple of chapters in the second half of the book I read. Literally, I read that chapter or there are two or three chapters in a row. Again, they're short. I read those probably once a month just to refresh my memory on that. And then there's another book called Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and John Townsend that is just good all around. Just for you personally, whether it's boundaries with your in-laws, with your coworkers, with your spouse, or whatever, it's a great personal development book. So kind of a variety of ideas there. Gresh.

10:46 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I want to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this is a little bit more of a word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your favorite client or if you hop into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

10:59 – Aaron Spatz

Yeah, I mean, I've kind of already alluded to it, but I would just say if you are able to, like, as you're starting out, as you're getting your business going, I really would focus on allowing the business entity itself to grow and not take money out of the business. I talked with a business attorney, actually, it was just like maybe two months ago, and he was talking about the fact that you know, most businesses are actually successful. He said the problem is most business owners take the money out of the business, therefore bankrupting its ability to grow organically.

Because unless you're in a hyper-competitive, really crazy market where your margins are 1% and that's not very many places, most of the things that you see out there, whether it's consulting or social media or PR or whatever else, you have a lot healthier margins. This means that theoretically, you should be repurposing that capital to help grow your team and help grow your tooling. And the problem is when you're just starting out, a lot of times you need every available dollar, so you're pulling all that money out of the business to pay your own bills.

And so that's, that would be the one thing. If I was to do it all over again, honestly, I would have found probably a job that would have given me a little bit more flexibility. So maybe a job that doesn't require you to be in 27 meetings per day. Right. But like something that's a little bit more maybe task focused or something that's a little bit like, I don't want to say easier, but you're able to just focus in on exactly what's expected.

Do what's expected and then you have set aside a time that you can work on your business and then grow it and let the business do the growth. Like letting the capital in the business do the growing. Rather than you pulling out all the money and pretending that money doesn't even exist. Put it in a separate bank, let alone bank accounts obviously, but bank separately from your own personal checking and savings. So that may be slightly nonstandard advice, but I really do think that makes a huge difference.

13:05 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different CEOs on this show. So Aaron, what does being a CEO mean to you?

13:15 – Aaron Spatz

CEO to me means that you are the quarterback and coach. You are the one there to empower, equip, and resource your team. You need to absolutely have a vision as to where you're going. You got to be visionary, but you've also got to be in the here and now. Unless you've got an amazing secondhand guy or secondhand but second-command type of person, like a coo. But CEO, you are there to help equip people for success, to drive amazing outcomes for your clients, and to really help people feel connected to the why and what they're doing and why it matters that the work that we're doing, it doesn't matter what industry you're doing, but to help deliver to them a purpose that they can rally around and a vision for where you're going.

14:05 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. Well, Erin, truly appreciate that. I appreciate and love your definition as well, too. So what I wanted to do now was pass you the Mic so to Speak week, just see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best people can get a hold of you, find out about your podcast and all the awesome things that you're working on.

14:21 – Aaron Spatz

Sure. Well, one, I just, appreciate you extending the invitation to me, Gresh. It's been a pleasure getting to know you at least. At least over email and then finally getting to meet you here. But in contributing to all that you're doing, I want to say that. But two, I mean, really, I have left it all on the table here. Like, I have really come, like, just guns blazing, trying to give you everything I've got in this, in this segment, because there is so much that I would go back and review and take a look at of where I've messed up and things that I've done.

Well, like, it hasn't. Hasn't been all, like, hasn't been all bad stuff, but we certainly learn a lot more from our bad, from, like, bad experiences than we do necessarily from our successes. And so to segue naturally and then into the podcast that I'm able to host, which is America's Entrepreneur, and again, it's featuring people that maybe they had a capital raise and they had to raise a whole bunch of money or. I mean, I interviewed someone recently and I mean, they lost their business just straight up. I mean, they. It went under.

There were a lot of things that happened. And so we're kind of picking through that. Like, what? What happened? And so kind of to your point earlier, Gresh, when you're saying, like, success leaves clues. I love that quote. I've heard that. And, but also, failure leaves clues, too, right? So it's like, you might want to go do a post-mortem and understand exactly what happened.

And I think that's important. And so if you're not getting the results in your, in your business that you were expecting, there's something going on and you probably know what it is. But if not, like, take a really close look at that. But no, you can find me pretty much anywhere. I'm on LinkedIn mainly. That's really where I hang my hat the most. The podcast is available everywhere on, you know, on all audio platforms. You can just search for my name Aaron Spaatz or the show America's Entrepreneur.

16:03 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I truly appreciate that Aaron. We'll have the links and information in the show notes as well too so that everybody can follow up with you. So thank you so much again my friend and I hope you have a.

16:12 – Aaron Spatz

Phenomenal rest of the day here for you brother. I'll see you. Thanks.

16:15 – 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.

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