IAM2794 – CEO and Podcaster Assists Creatives Start and Scale Their Businesses

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Transcription:

Gresham Harkless 00:00
You already have the experience and the skills to make money doing something you enjoy. More often than not, people already have exactly what they need. And so I wish I could have just sat down with a consultant or somebody to help me kind of extract the things that I was already good at, the things that I was already doing naturally, and package it in a way that was ready to sell to people, whether it was a product or service or whatever it might be.

Gresham Harkless 00:54
hello, hello, hello, this is Gretch from the I Am CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today at Delaney Fisher of Doing it with Delaney. Delaney. It's awesome to have you on the show.

Delaney Fisher 01:02
Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. This is awesome.

Gresham Harkless 01:05
Super. Yeah, definitely super excited to have you on. And what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Delaney so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Delaney Fisher is a podcaster, business owner and creative consultant. She's the co host of Self Helpless, Self Helpless, a top itunes and Spotify podcast that has over a million downloads, and is the CEO of the humorous custom art business that has been featured on Team Coco Digs by Delaney Fisher, hat also assists other creatives and entrepreneurs with starting and scaling their businesses via her consulting services. Doing It With Delaney Delaney has a background in stand up comedy writing and producing and she has been featured in NBC's Last Call with Carson Daly, co wrote and appeared in Lifetime's Bad Tutor and executive produced the docu comedy special Love at First Cousin. Delaney, are you ready to speak to the I Am CEO community?

Delaney Fisher 01:52
Yeah, let's do this.

Gresham Harkless 01:53
Let's make it happen. No problem. Thanks for doing all the awesome things. So I wanted to kind of kick everything off with what I call your CEO story and we'll let you get started for business.

Delaney Fisher 02:02
Yeah. So I was a stand up comedian for about six and a half years and although I loved it for a good portion of time, towards the end of my career, I was really unhappy with the lifestyle. It's a lot of traveling, it's being out every night. It just wasn't really. It just wasn't really Kind of lining up with what I wanted my life to look like. And so I, I tried to figure out a way like how can I be my own boss but like still bring laughter to people and still do the things I love, but just in a way that makes me happier. And I had this hobby, like this side hobby for a while called Dicks by Delaney, where I would basically hand paint penis cartoons on coffee mugs like as a joke. It started as a joke. I basically was invited to a holiday party with a bunch of comedians one year and we all had to bring like a handmade item and, and so I drew a bunch of colorful penises on a coffee mug and the mug was an unexpected hit and friends and family started asking me to make them sets of dick mugs for their home. It's just this weird, this like weird hobby that evolved over time. And I started turning characters and celebrities and my friends into like penis caricatures. I know I sound crazy. Well, this hobby was kind of just like there the whole time, but I never really paid attention to it. And I decided that I was going to go all in on Dick's by Delaney and see if I could make it a legit business. And so for six months I planned and I trademarked and I, you know, I streamlined my processes and everything. And when I launched I was able to make that my full time job relatively quickly. And so that is what really started the entrepreneurial preneurial journey for me was this like ridiculous like high quality gag gift business where I basically figured out how to be a stay at home comedian. And then from there a lot of other creatives and comedians and people were reaching out to me, asking me to help them with their own business because they were shocked that I was able to make a full time living from selling penis mugs. So that's where the Doing it with Delaney Creative Consulting came in. And now I run Dicks by Delaney and I recently hired, you know, my, my first employee contractor. So I'm very excited about that. And then. Thank you so much. And then, and then I do the creative consulting and I help other entrepreneurs and creatives start a business, figure out what they want to do, scale their business, all that stuff.

Gresham Harkless 04:25
Nice.

Delaney Fisher 04:25
Yeah.

Gresham Harkless 04:27
Well, I definitely appreciate that. It's so funny because what's it like the commercial that I think is the people that are doing all this crazy stuff before they, they're, they're watching a game, they say it's only crazy if it doesn't work. So it's great that you actually did that you've been able to kind of build a business around it. So I think that's absolutely awesome because I think there's so many people that have, you know, certain talents and they don't know if they can, you know, create a business around it. But a lot of times you just have to go out and do it and then next thing you know, you never know what people might be interested in and want to buy.

Delaney Fisher 04:55
Absolutely, absolutely. I felt you have to go for that ridiculous, crazy idea you have. You just don't know.

Gresham Harkless 05:01
Exactly, exactly. And then like even I heard a lot about, you know, just like being a standup comedian as well too is like, that's definitely a grind. I've heard a lot of, you know, famous communities as they've gotten started, just the going from different show to different show and living out of a, basically a band and all that stuff, it's just, it can be really, really hard. But I love how you were able to pivot in very like an entrepreneurial form. Like, this is what I want for my life, this is what I'm passionate about doing. How can I recreate something to make that happen?

Delaney Fisher 05:27
Exactly. Yeah. Sometimes you got to just take the element that you love and figure out something different with it. So like I love making people laugh and now I can make people laugh in my pajamas while I paint my. Like that works for me.

Gresham Harkless 05:43
There you go. I love it. So I know you touched on it a little bit. I want to drill a little bit deeper down to hear how you're working with the clients. You tell take us a little bit more through exactly what you do and how you support the clients you work with.

Delaney Fisher 05:54
Absolutely. So I, I help a variety of people right now, depending on where they're at in their journey. Some people have no idea what they want to do and they're really unhappy with their day job. And I help them kind of uncover the skills and experience they already have and help them package those things in a way that might make a great service based business or product based business. Then I also help people who already have a business idea, you know, brand, market, scale the business. And then I help people with creative projects, so writers and comedians or people who want to start stand up comedy. So that's been really, really fun. But I find that, yeah, I'm helping people who kind of want to be consultants a lot and people who want to have a creative product based business. Those are the two main focuses I have, which makes sense because that's what I've done for myself. And so that where I feel like I'm probably the most helpful. And then of course, you know, people who want to try something creative, because I do have a decent amount of experience in the entertainment industry, you know, writing scripts and writing standup comedy and, you know, TV tapings and all that stuff. So it's kind of a mix of people and I just absolutely love it.

Gresham Harkless 06:58
Yeah, it definitely sounds exciting. I can imagine. Just you probably are get. Are infused with so many different ideas that people have that it probably keeps your juices flowing as well too, just to come up with different things and how to help them.

Delaney Fisher 07:08
Yeah, and it's so fulfilling to watch your clients succeed. I mean, they're getting their first paid clients and they're getting shout outs from, like, their favorite influencers and they're doing all these amazing things. And I love the creative brainstorming that happens and then being able to, like, send them off with the tools and follow up with them and see, you know, see what amazing things are going on. So, yeah, I love it.

Gresham Harkless 07:28
Nice. Definitely sounds awesome. And it's funny because I know you touched on, like, when you were getting started that, you know, you had the gag gift that you created and then you saw that it was something that was kind of taken off just from your friends or your other close group. So you said you went back for like six months and you really got, like, the processes of the system together. Was that something that you kind of just picked up, you read about? Because I'm sure that's what you help out, you know, these creatives as well with now, but I'm sure I don't. Well, I don't think most creatives kind of have that intuitive knack on, okay, let's build a business from doing that. So was that something you just picked up?

Delaney Fisher 07:59
That's a great question. You know, I think I read a lot of, like, different blog tips and articles, but a lot of it was just kind of what I felt intuitively was the right move for my business. And so I went through processes where, like, I made different variations of my product and I asked friends and family there for their feedback and try to do, like, easy market research. And then I really kind of brainstormed my brand and thought about, like, this vision for my brand and, you know, what kind of feelings I wanted my customers to have and all that stuff. And I let a lot of those things just kind of drive me. And, you know, I think it's something where I was kind of letting my. My. Yeah. Internally, I was just kind of listening to myself instead of a lot of the business advice I was getting. I'm personally a minimalist and a simplist with my business. So for me, like, pushing a lot of product into different retailers and stuff does not sound fun for me. And I was actually taking. I was actually not listening to a lot of advice I was getting. And I think that's also important too, is making sure that your values align with the way you're running your business. And I'm actually going to be launching an online course very soon to help people who have a creative product business idea. And I go through step by step with how I built my own, the foundation for my own business. So that's going to be coming out very soon, called the thriving artist course, if anybody was interested. But yeah, I basically reveal all the mistakes I made as a new business owner and the advice I wish I had and the tools and stuff that I use.

Gresham Harkless 09:22
Nice. I think, I think that's definitely a way to kind of increase your likelihood of success, to be able to kind of tap into people that have gone through the good and the bad ups and downs of growing that business and be able to learn from your expertise to be able to do that. Because I think it could be super hard to kind of figure out what your next step is. But I love the fact that you decided and I think you need to do that a lot as there's so many kind of ways to go about, you know, doing this. This is the right way, this is the wrong way. But if you can't answer that for yourself, then it's really hard to kind of make sure that you're going to be, quote, unquote, successful.

Delaney Fisher 09:50
Absolutely. And there's so much advice out there for people who want to build a business that like branding and stuff should be like the last thing that you do. But I did, I did the completely opposite. Like, I'm a creative person. I need to be on stuff first before I follow through with like, the logistics, the legal and the packaging and the finance. Like, I needed to kind of brainstorm and like, dream a little bit in order to follow through on those, like, not so sexy tasks later. And so I think for creatives have to work differently when they're building a

Gresham Harkless 10:19
business, I think, yeah, that makes perfect sense. And it's kind of like the, the quote, you know, find something you love to do. You know, never work in a day in your life. But understanding that aspect of the business that drives you most, if you're going to do the legal part and the accounting part, and that's not what lights you up, is it's probably not going to be able to become a business because you're not, like, doing it. But if you have that and you say, okay, well, to do all this cool creative branding stuff, I can do a little bit of the legal stuff here and there as I move along, that can kind of fire you up and get you going.

Delaney Fisher 10:47
Exactly. Like, I want my clients to fall in love with their vision, so much so that following through with the logistics is no big deal, because they can't imagine their idea not being out in the world. So that's kind of how I kind of work backwards.

Gresham Harkless 10:59
No, that, that makes perfect sense. It's kind of knowing thyself, you know, fall in love with the, the vision, so you can fall in love with the process a little bit more. So I appreciate that. And I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And you might have already touched on this, but this is what you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique.

Delaney Fisher 11:14
Yeah, sure. So I think with my business, because it's, it's. It's a gag gift business, but it's, it's a very, like, I think it's a very high quality, unique gag gift. And the fact that it's a really subtle dick joke. Like, if you, if you bought one of our, one of our products, like, you could display it in your home and you might know that it's a penis, but your, your friends and family coming over might not know. They really looked hard. And so I think it's kind of this thing that has appealed to a lot of people that might not be drawn to, like, the other gag gifts that are out there, you know, like plastic penises for bachelorette parties and stuff like that. And so it's kind of like this, this, like, more mature, I guess, gag gift for everybody that everybody can enjoy. And I think that's kind of what people have been drawn to. And we've also. Now I don't actually do any mugs or anything anymore. It's all digital design now. So people can basically buy a penis cartoon image that was professionally made by a cartoonist, and then they can take that image and print it or put it on anything that they want. So they can print it on mugs or tote bags or send it in an E card or invitations or whatever. And so I think it's, It's a very versatile thing as well.

Gresham Harkless 12:25
Yeah, that makes perfect sense, and I definitely appreciate that. 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?

Delaney Fisher 12:36
I heard a really great piece of advice recently, and I can't remember which podcast it was, or else I'd give them credit because I listened to so many different ones. But whenever I get stuck somewhere in my business, often, like, the first re. The first, like, instinct for us is like, oh, my gosh, how do I fix this? What do I do? What do I need to learn in order to make this work? And instead shifting the focus to who can I give this to? Who can help me? Who can I delegate this to? And that can get you unstuck so quickly. And so that would be. That's like a big mindset shift that I've taken in my business. It's helped me a lot, is you don't have to do it all by yourself. In fact, you shouldn't. You're going to be more productive and more profitable if you. If you get other people who are good at doing what they do and you delegate the work to them or you hire them or, you know, whatever the situation is. So that is something that I now live by.

Gresham Harkless 13:24
Nice. So I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So this is a word of wisdom or a piece of advice, or if you can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Delaney Fisher 13:33
You already have the experience and the skills to make money doing something you enjoy more. More often than not, people already have exactly what they need. And so I wish I could have just maybe sat. Sat down with a consultant or somebody to help me kind of extract the things that I was already good at, the things that I was already doing, naturally, and package it in a way that was ready to sell to people, whether it was a product or service or whatever it might be.

Gresham Harkless 14:00
Nice. Well, I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote, unquote, CEOs on this show. So, Delaney, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Delaney Fisher 14:10
Oh, that is a good question. For me, being a CEO means running my business with integrity in every possible way that I can. I pride myself on being as eco friendly as possible and ethical and paying the people that I hire really well and. And great customer service. So for me, it's all about making sure my customers are taken care of. And they feel seen and heard and they're happy with what they get. And same thing to any contractors I hire as well. And yeah, just honestly, it sounds cheesy, but just like spreading laughter with my business is the vision. I mean, that's, that's why I do what I do. And so, yeah, those are the things that drive me is like, just be a good person. Just like if you're a good person and you run your business with integrity, you cannot fail. There's nothing that you can do to fail.

Gresham Harkless 14:57
Nice. Well, I definitely appreciate that. And I think when you have that filter, you have that strong passion, that mission, then it kind of can put everything that you're doing through that. As you kind of spoke about before, like, sometimes we struggle about should I make this decision or that decision, but a lot of times if you know your mission, you can go back through that and it kind of helps guide you as much as possible. So I definitely appreciate that perspective. I appreciate your time even more, Delaney. What I wanted to do was 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 then of course, I best they can get a hold of you, find out about your course and all the awesome things that you're doing.

Delaney Fisher 15:26
Yeah, absolutely. You can find me at Delaney Fisher. Com. My, my name's a little bit weird, so it's D E L A N I E F I S C H E R. You can message me on Instagram or shoot me an email there, and I'm happy to send you any information about what's going on the course and my consulting services. My podcast is called Self Helpless. It's a comedic self help podcast that I do with two of my best friends, hilarious comedians, Taylor Tomlinson and Kelsey Cook. So feel free to check that out. And the one thing I would leave people with is you just have to start. You just have to do it. And I think a lot of people wait until they feel like they have all their ducks in a row or dicks in a row for my case. And they have to, you know, they wait and before things are perfect to start. And it's actually the opposite. You, you really can't. You can't get better and you can't build on something unless you're already doing it. So just do that one baby step today.

Gresham Harkless 16:19
Exactly. And a lot of times we forget that we can just take that one step. So I appreciate you for reminding us of that and of course we will have your links and information in the show notes as well too for your your Instagram, your, your website, and of course the podcast as well too. But thank you so much again Delaney. I hope you have a great rest of the day.