IAM1018- CEO Helps Social Impact Entrepreneurs Launch their Dream Business

00:19 - Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:47 - 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 Tasha Prados of Deraka Strategic. Tasha, it's awesome to have you on the show.

00:56 -Tasha Prados

Hey, thanks so much for having me Gresh. I'm excited to be here.

01:00 - Gresham Harkless

Definitely super excited to have you on. And what I wanted to do before we jumped in is read a little bit more about Tasha so we can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. As founder and CEO of Deraka Strategic, Tasha helps aspiring social impact entrepreneurs launch their dream business in 90 days without letting overthinking hold them back. She is bilingual in multicultural business branding and marketing strategist.

01:23 - Tasha Prados

Lots of tongue twisters in there.

01:25 - Gresham Harkless

Exactly, exactly. With 10 years of project management, communications, and marketing experience with the world's leading organizations, publishers, and nonprofits. She has received over a dozen industry awards, including the Shorty Social Good Awards, the Public Relations Society of America, and the American Advertising Federation. She was also recognized by the National Peace Corps Association on their 40 under 40 list, exemplifying a new generation of leadership. Tasha has done everything from developing integrative marketing campaigns for Fortune 500 companies at the top 3 global ad agencies to directly supporting the Afghan ambassador to the US to helping the UN advance sustainable development goals.

02:03 - Gresham Harkless

She's a DMV native digital nomad avid outdoors gal and occasional travel writer. Tasha, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

02:14 - Tasha Prados

I'm stoked to speak to the I AM CEO community. 

02:17 - Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Well, let's do it then. Your bio got me all choked up and everything. So I wanted to hear a little bit more about how you guys started, what I like to call your CEO story.

02:30 - Tasha Prados

Yeah, absolutely. So I never thought I was going to be a CEO. I think, you know, I'm obviously a woman and multicultural. And I think, you know, especially for some folks in those communities, it can be tough to go out and start your own thing because it's sort of a non-traditional path and they're often, people perceive that as having less security. You need a lot of, you know, it's hard if you don't have a safety net to really invest in yourself and take a leap of faith. So I definitely did not start out down this road. I started my career in international development.

I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru, and I really wanted to go, you know, work on alleviating poverty and inequality all over the world. I came back from the Peace Corps and I worked at a startup, a think tank, the Embassy of Afghanistan, and the United Nations Foundation. And then at a top 3 global ad agency for 4 years. So I worked with a lot of big US government agencies and Fortune 500 companies. And I found myself sort of daydreaming about the idea of being a digital nomad and being able to travel all over the world.

And I was sort of trying to figure out ways to support that dream and also get back to my roots of like really wanting to, you know, do good things and change the world and help people. So I sort of found a way to fuse those ideas. That's what led me to start my business, Duraka Strategic, where I help aspiring social impact entrepreneurs launch their dream businesses. So the way I see it is like, if I can help other people, you know, do good things for the world, then I'm helping the world. And then I do still work with a lot of big companies and clients, including, you know, the European Union government, a lot of big US government companies and advertising agencies.

So it's been, I've been super lucky, even during the pandemic to still have work. I've gotten to work with some really awesome startups, get to work for the World Bank on gender-based violence, and do just a lot of really cool stuff. So I was so lucky that, you know, within a year, I think of officially launching, I got to 6 figures in my business. And it's just been such an honor and a privilege to be able to take this journey and to be able to help others along it.

04:43 - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I love that because as you said so well, you're able to kind of make that impact, but make that impact because you're also helping to empower those organizations, those people that are making that social impact. So really being able to drill down and fuse all those things together and all your experience to be able to empower those to do really great work is phenomenal.

05:02 - Tasha Prados

Thank you. That means a lot coming from you.

05:04 - Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. Well, I wanted to drill down a little bit more. I know you talked a little bit more about how you work with your clients and how that process goes. Could you take us through a little bit more about that and what that looks like?

05:14 - Tasha Prados

Yeah, Absolutely. So for aspiring social impact entrepreneurs, I find that a lot of folks, you know, like I said, being an entrepreneur is a non-traditional path. A lot of times, you know, you're trying to do that, trying to build out your business while working a day job. You know, you might have a family, you might have kids, you've got a lot going on in your life, you're super busy, and it's really often hard to figure out, you know, what is the right path forward? You know, how do I take the first step? Like, what am I going to do so that I can really get this business off the ground and support myself financially?

I don't want to spam my friends and family just talking about my business all the time, like what to do? So I basically, for those folks, I have a free webinar called How to Launch Your Dream Business in 90 days without letting overthinking hold you back. And then I also have a paid program that folks can join called 0 to Launch, where I teach sort of this 4 part roadmap helping people go from 0 all the way to launch and teaching them how to build an impactful brand, how to do all the upfront thinking so that you're not wasting time treading your wheels on stuff that doesn't work.

And how to sort of market your business from an integrated approach that is going to attract dream clients to you. And then I do still work with really big companies and organizations so a lot of that work tends to come to me through referrals or through former colleagues, sometimes inquiries on my website, But most of that is word of mouth. But for a lot of the entrepreneur stuff, it comes from all over the place. And I've been lucky to be able to meet folks from all over the world.

06:45 - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And you're doing, again, phenomenal work. And I love how even the title of the webinar that you mentioned as well too, because I think like overthinking can definitely crop up, you know before you have this phenomenal idea you've given. And I like to think of being given a gift sometimes to give to the world, to give to society and make that impact. But so many times we can let fear and overthinking kind of crowd that before it comes to fruition.

07:08 - Tasha Prados

Yes, it is so true. And I see that so much among the folks that I work with, even people who have amazing experience and incredible ideas and like so much to give. You know, I think especially for women and minorities who have often been told by others that like, you know, it can sometimes be hard to have that faith and have that confidence. And so in my program, I really try to give people that confidence so that they can feel good and not be so stressed out about launching and really do it with happiness and excitement, which is what it should be.

07:43 - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. Especially if you're doing great work. And I love how you tied and talked about that in your story as well too. It's like sometimes when you're going through uncharted territory and you have all these quote-unquote things working against you, a lot of times those things are working for you. And if you can change that foundation, change your mentality and understand that, then you really can use that to your benefit to get to where you want to be and make the impact we want to have.

08:05 - Tasha Prados

Absolutely. I couldn't have said it better myself.

08:07 - Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So, I wanted to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce, and this could be for yourself personally or the business or a combination of both, but what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

08:18 - Tasha Prados

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think there's a, well, I don't want to toot my own horn too much, but I think there's a lot of different things. Having traveled all over the world and seen folks from everywhere, I have gotten, I've been a little bit disappointed to see some of the folks that market themselves as, you know, I guess there's a lot of like business coaches out there that I see that are telling other people how to run their business and they don't necessarily have any real experience doing that or like a solid track record. So you know what I've really tried to do is take the best practices and tools and strategies.

I've used them for Fortune 500 companies and governments and really boiled those down to make them accessible for small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs. And so I think that really gives people a lot of confidence that these approaches are going to work and that I actually know what I'm talking about. You know, I've got over a dozen industry awards. So I think people are looking for something that they can trust. That's like a credible source. So I hope to be that for people.

09:27 - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, and that's absolutely huge. And I think It's so funny you were saying that, because I think the other day I was going through, I think Facebook comments and it was on a Facebook ad and someone was saying a lot of times people reach success by selling coaching programs or certain things for people rather than getting that tried and true experience. So I love that you're able to, you know, as you said, like translate or distill down those concepts and things you're doing for those, you know, those big organizations so that it's more accessible and people can execute on that no matter what their size.

09:57 - Tasha Prados

Yeah, exactly. Because it's the people just starting out who don't have any money who need that stuff the most, but just can't afford it, right?

10:05 - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And knowing where you wanna be, and if you do wanna grow your organization to have the same impact as these big organizations, it's best to kind of understand those principles and the ways that they're doing it so that you can implement it and grow into that.

10:17 - Tasha Prados

Exactly.

10:19 - 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?

10:31 - Tasha Prados

Yeah, I'll give you two. I'll give you a book that I love and I'll give you a habit. So a book that I love, I don't know if you've read Rework. It's by the guys who created Ruby on Rails, the programming language and created Basecamp. And I just find that to be such an incredible business book. It's so simple and so easy to read, but like don't take that for confusing it with not having a lot of value. There is just everything in that book is so well thought out, so distilled down to the essence and it's so easy to follow, so easy to read. It's got fun illustrations and I was just highlighting that book like crazy. I was like, everything in here is gold. So that's definitely one that I recommend for folks because I think it really helps put people in the right mindset.

And then a habit that I've been doing that I love, I think, is just we can't necessarily know how much our efforts will lead to success with 100% confidence, but what we can do is really put forth consistent effort and we can track our effort. And so something I have started doing is I have like this little habit tracker. And so I'll put in like, you know, things I really wanna focus on. I'll put in something I wanna do every single day to work towards my goal. And then I'll just go in every day and be like, okay, did I do this?

Great. And just the act of, you know, what do I want to work on every day and tracking it and going in there every day and marking if I did it or not. Like, I'm going to do that a lot more because I get competitive with myself And I'm going to be like, I want to, I want to, I want all X's in this column. So that's a fun 1 that I think can be really helpful for folks, especially when you're starting out and you're really overwhelmed and you're really busy. You know, it can be hard to make that time, but if you just send 1 email a day at the end of the month, you'll have sent 30 emails. So.

12:18 - Gresham Harkless

Nice, nice, nice. And so I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client or if you hopped into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

12:30 - Tasha Prados

Yeah, I think I'll kind of build on the theme that we've been going with. You know I see so many folks when they're starting out they they put up all these artificial barriers for themselves they're like. You know I can't reach out to anybody about this this business, I want to start because I don't have a website yet or. I can't reach out to anybody about this business I want to start because I don't have a logo yet. And so they'll spend a lot of time spinning their wheels or being like me or spending a lot of money, you know, hiring a graphic designer and like building a website when there's a much quicker and easier ways to get started and start getting clients.

So that you can then get the money to invest in the things that you want to continue to build your business while taking the time to think strategically about, you know, what should this really look like and what would make the most sense. I think a lot of entrepreneurs, I mean, that's why we're entrepreneurs, right? We're doers and we want to rush into things. But if you just take a step back and have, I mean, I think for some people, they just don't know, right? They don't have the expert guidance to know what is going to land the best.

So that's really what I try to help people do is there's a fine balance between getting out there and doing stuff and taking a step back and thinking strategically. And you really need to do both because what you want to do is get out there, start talking to your ideal customer, start refining your services, and use the money that you're getting from those initial sales to continue to invest and build your business so that you're not just draining your savings. But I think it's a fine balance to strike. And that's something that I really try to help people get right.

14:05 - Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And so 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 hoping to have different quote unquote CEOs on the show. So Tasha, what does being a CEO mean to you?

14:15 - Tasha Prados

Being a CEO too, I think it's really about being able to define success for yourself and design the life you want. It doesn't have to be about making a ton of money. That's definitely not what it is for me. It's really about building the life and the freedom and the flexibility that I want, being able to serve causes that I care about. That's why I really focus on social impact and entrepreneurship and helping out folks who are just starting out and doing good things for the world.

14:48 - Gresham Harkless

Tasha truly appreciates that. And I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do was just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

15:00 - Tasha Prados

Thank you so much, Gresh. This has been such a pleasure and such a big fan. So lovely being here. I think if anybody wants to, if you're an aspiring social impact entrepreneur and you've been thinking about starting your own business, but you're just not sure where to start. I have a free webinar you can take. Like I said, it's called How to Launch Your Dream Business in 90 Days without letting overthinking hold you back. So if you go to my website it's duracastrategic.com. That's D-U-R-A-C-A strategic.com I'm sure Gresh will put this in the show notes, but just on the homepage there, you can see the link to watch it for free. And if you just go to work with us, free workshop, it's right there, it's free. Sign up, watch it, let me know what you think. DM me on Instagram at Duraka Period Strategic. It's really me and I'd love to hear from you and get in touch.

15:55 - Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Thank you so much again, Tasha. Like you mentioned, we will have the links and information in the show notes to make it even easier for everybody to see the webinar, but I'm a big believer in, you know, knowledge is power and being able to kind of stand on the quote unquote shoulders of giants and learn from them. So I appreciate you providing all that information and making that available to us. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:14 - 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.