In this episode, we have Audra Carpenter, founder and CEO of Zindo+Co Marketplace – an edutech platform dedicated to supporting online business growth.
Audra shares her journey from running coffee shops to operating a digital marketing agency, and how she mentors budding business owners through her edutech platform, Zindo.co.
She discusses the importance of strategy, asking questions, and being a lifelong learner in achieving business success. Audra also stresses the significance of leadership and setting an example for others.
The episode dives into the challenges and opportunities presented by AI in business, and Audra provides valuable advice for entrepreneurs at various stages of their business.
This enlightening conversation aims to help listeners level up their businesses by focusing on effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and embrace constant learning.
Website: zindo.co
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Full Interview:
Transcription:
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Audra Carpenter Teaser 00:00
These people had high hopes and they're determined and they're driven with passion and excitement of doing something great. But you know, I've done this so many years, I could tell you when I meet you, if the business is going to make it or not, if you've got what it takes.
Intro 00:16
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.
Gresham Harkless 00:45
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 Audra Carpenter. Audra, excited to have you on the show.
Audra Carpenter 00:53
Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to this conversation.
Gresham Harkless 00:56
Yes, absolutely. I always look forward to my conversations with Audra. She has so much information, so much knowledge and experience that I'm excited to try to delve a little bit deeper into. But of course, before we do that, I want to read a little bit more about Audra. So you can hear about some of those awesome things she's been working on.
An entrepreneur with a diverse portfolio, ranging from coffee shops to digital marketing agency. She has coached and mentored thousands of budding business owners and established Zindo.co marketplace, an edutech platform dedicated to supporting online business growth.
And I had the opportunity to be a guest on Audra's podcast. And we talked a little bit about AI, all the awesome things that she has a phenomenal conference that I also got a chance to to speak at.
But I really geek out. And like I mentioned, I really geek out on just talking with her about all the tinkering that she's doing that I'm doing and just overall the tools to see. There's just so many things out there.
But one of the things that really kind of touched me as I was reading a little bit more about her and when I was preparing for this interview and she said, even as a little girl, she's always been driven by challenging herself and doing the thing that hasn't been done before.
So Audra, excited to have you on the show. Even more about what you're working on and doing. Are you ready to speak to the I Am CEO community?
Audra Carpenter 02:03
I'm excited that, you know, this is the first podcast I've done in 2024. So this is great. This is kind of setting the level and, and the direction going forward. So thank you for having me again.
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Gresham Harkless 02:14
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for being there and let's absolutely set that table and have a productive and an awesome year to follow. So I guess the kick Things off rather than talking about this year. Let's rewind the clock a little bit. Talk about how things got started when I call your CEO story.
Audra Carpenter 02:28
Well, gosh, I mean, so many years of doing this, but I would probably just tick on the agency stuff. So 2009, I moved from owning a title company into digital marketing and somebody introduced me to a Dan Kennedy event. So I go back to the days of J K I C and the underground with Yannick silver and those kinds of guys, and really found my way of providing services started with social media services.
And that kind of evolved into web design and SEO and, you know, 15 years at doing this industry. You've, you will learn it all. There's. There's no reason not to, especially if you want to be able to provide a complete solution for your clients.
Last couple of years, I've been pivoting a little bit more into done with you services instead of me just doing all of it, which has been a really nice transition.
You know, there's so many different things to do. I think that's what keeps me interested in this industry is there's always something else to learn. There's always something else to challenge yourself. A new opportunity comes up with a client lots and lots of good stuff. And then of course, with AI rolling out, that just opened up.
You know, a whole new world of opportunity. I'm definitely that on the, I'm an early adopter. I want to be at the front of change and, you know, AI with, I know it's not a podcast about AI, but AI coming available for business has changed the game.
And it's, you know, it's made it harder, but at the same time, it's made it amazingly easy to take advantage of all the opportunity that's available now. So it's the best time. I mean, you know, no time in history have we ever had this kind of experience.
It's just, everybody's got to, as fast as it's moving, I would suggest we slow down for just a second and embrace what's in front, what's in front of us and happening right now.
Gresham Harkless 04:27
Yeah, absolutely. And so I wanted to drill down a little bit more in here, a little bit more on your why and the things that you're doing. Can you take us through exactly like how you're serving your clients? I know you have your podcast. You have your conference, all those things, but also want to hear about Zindo.Co too.
And all the awesome things you're doing.
Audra Carpenter 04:41
Thank you. Zendo came out of. I think more frustration, so, you know, fast forward as an agency owner, 10 years, 12 years, it's expensive to work with me, but the, you get to a place, I think, as your career evolves, how many more people at 10 million. Do I help get to 15 million?
How many more people do I but the people that actually need agency services can't afford you because they're not making enough money yet. They don't have systems. They don't have infrastructures. They don't even understand how a business is built.
Now, mind you, I did some volunteering back in 2017 with an organization called score. org. They're here in the U. S. and it's a group of volunteers that's nationwide. They're funded by the small business administration, and we just volunteer.
Well, I started volunteering. I felt like I was a little anchor less, you know, you get a little burnout on delivering the same services. It was just rinse and repeat. I'm 10 years into this. I needed to find my why I need to find out, okay, do I stay in this industry or is it time to do something else?
And when you work with higher-end clients, it's a very different conversation. It's numbers and metrics and profit and loss statements, and it's finding more money and that's all fine. I love doing that. I'm very good at helping people make money, but I, some of the passion of why I was doing it was gone.
So I started volunteering. I always know if I'm stuck, I just need to go give. The answer will show itself, right? So I started volunteering and I was excited, but I was also super sad.
And the reason why is I started mentoring. I think my first year I probably mentored 180 people and it's all about marketing and sales and, you know, doing business online and all that kind of good stuff. And I could not get over some of the amazing ideas these people had.
I was like, how'd you think of that? That is brilliant. But the sad thing was it wasn't going to matter how many conversations I had with them. They weren't going to figure out the marketing. And so I know that product is never going to see the time of day that it should.
It could be a multimillion-dollar product, but because there's nobody there giving them the direct, more direct steps on how to actually build a business, they're going to fail. It's never going to be more than a 50, 000 a year business.
And these people had high hopes and they're determined and they're driven with passion and excitement of doing something great. But you know, I've done this so many years, I could tell you when I meet you, if the business is going to make it or not, if you've got what it takes.
And it's not just about money or digging in and learning everything. It's really just being able to focus on the right things at the right time. And that was kind of where I decided, look, I got to do something different. I got to do something to help these people.
And so I started building the pieces which is what the marketplace is. So I have WordPress hosting. I have a training site. I have a freelance site where they can contract with work with other people to get services provided.
And I've got a barter site where maybe you don't have any money, but you could trade. Services with somebody that has a skill that you need. What else do I have in there? I have a tech support site, and then I've got an AI site that's coming with GPTs and a couple of other things.
But the goal was, is we need to simplify this conversation. It's, there's so much. Amazing marketing out there that everybody gets super overwhelmed and let me take this course and let me get this one on email marketing or funnels or this or that. And they're not ready for it yet. They haven't launched yet.
So stop trying to automate stuff. If you haven't launched, stop trying to build a website before you find an audience. I mean, there's so many things that are done. And if people would just have a simpler. Step by step that would increase the chances of their success. Now I can't guarantee it's going to work, but what I can say is it's got a much better outcome of doing the right things at the right time.
And more businesses would succeed. So that was a long way to say why I'm on this mission, but it really is important. Because there's, there's just some really, really amazing products out there and people behind them that deserve a shot to get out there and let the world be served by it.
Gresham Harkless 09:25
Yeah, absolutely. And I appreciate you sharing that. So, let me ask you this.
What would you consider to be what I call, your secret sauce? This could be for yourself the business combination of both. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?
Audra Carpenter 09:39
I would say probably first my drive. Yeah, there's not a lot of people work wise can go toe to toe. I'm pretty driven as far as that kind of stuff goes. I think the other thing is I'm not afraid to ask questions. If I don't know it, it's okay. That just means I haven't learned it yet. So I'm pretty good at asking questions. And then I am a life learner. So when I'm not working, like on client stuff or on my own stuff.
I'm learning, I'm watching YouTube videos. I'm, you know, reading or watching documentaries or reading biographies. I'm always doing something else. And you know, some people may say, well, when's your downtime? That is my downtime. I enjoy doing that. That is super fun for me to continue to learn like that.
And so I would say those, it's going to be pretty tough to outwork me. I'm pretty committed and not like a hustle burnout kind of thing. It's stuff I actually enjoy doing. So it doesn't tax me like that.
Gresham Harkless 10:42
Yeah, that makes so much sense. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And we might've already touched on this, but could this could be an app, a book or a habit that you have, but what's something that you feel like you lean on that makes you more effective and efficient?
Audra Carpenter 10:55
I would say my biggest hack for me is I always go back to strategy. I don't do anything without a strategy. And I think crashing and burning so much. In my early entrepreneur days of jumping in on step 42 and trying to make it work and then end up having to circle back around to the beginning. I don't do anything without it.
But it is my secret sauce because I get the right foundation at the beginning, and I know what I'm trying to build doesn't mean that it doesn't pivot or that it goes left or goes right. But because I put the time in to build the right stuff at the beginning.
I'm able to build between all of my websites, client sites, maybe 25, 000 just me personally. And it's because once I go in and I've got the right product, the right decisions, the things I'm able to help people build on. Man, it makes things so much easier.
And so I would definitely say that's something that that's like something I hold on to. So no matter what you go into, start with the strategy. What is the plan? What am I trying to achieve? Why am I doing this? What kind of resources do I need? Is it a person, a product, a process and build on top of that?
Gresham Harkless 12:12
Nice. I love that. I wanted to ask you now for what I call more of a CEO nugget. This could be like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell your younger business self. If you were to hop into a time machine or potentially might tell your favorite client.
Audra Carpenter 12:25
I would say if you're struggling or if you're not getting the growth that you want to see in your business, you got to stop, turn off the computer, stop watching YouTube videos, stop watching, even, even our podcast, stop, stop everything for a moment and write down where you're at.
And then literally write a list for yourself as what you should be focusing on versus what you're actually focusing on, because I guarantee you the chances are, they're not the same. And that's really what it comes down to business owner after business owner that I've talked to, or I've worked with.
It's the same thing. We're just, we're not focused on, I mean, we're, we're taught to, look to the future, right? Go to the end and re engineer backwards and work towards your goals and that kind of stuff. But you get so focused on trying to get there that you start trying to do the work that happens in that stage, but you haven't finished what you needed to do here to evolve to that next stage.
So I would say if you're stuck, if you're struggling or just like, man, I'm at a million and I can't seem to get past it. Sit down. Are you in the launch stage, the growth stage, the scaling stage? Automation stage. There's different things that we do through each one of those. And until you know where you're at and you're focusing on the right things, you're going to stay stuck. You're going to do a lot of circles.
Gresham Harkless 13:53
Yeah. So absolutely appreciate that nugget. And so now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And our goal is to have different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So Audra, what does being a CEO mean to you?
Audra Carpenter 14:06
Wow, that's a good one. I want to say that. Being a CEO is important. If you've decided to take that role it's your responsibility to one, be the best that you can, but two, to also lead and continue to not only provide for your staff and your customers and stuff like that, but also be your best version of yourself.
When I started my first coffee shop, and I first started hiring employees, it was super awkward and I didn't really know what I was doing. I had been an employee up till that point, but I never asked my employees to do something that I wasn't willing to do. And that was just a big thing for me that I always felt if I'm going to lead, I need to lead by example.
I need to say, look, this is, we all got to get it done. They knew still who was the boss and I still knew how to direct and, but they, I think more respect comes from that and trust and support and loyalty. When you're saying I'm not better than you, I'm just different than you and that's okay.
And we're all going to get the job done at whoever and wherever it needs to happen. And that has served me really, really well. That I'm a little bit different where I'll get in the weeds with you. You want me to get in? We need to do this as a team effort. Let's do it.
And, but now's the time where I got to lead and I've got to be able to delegate as well. And I would say that's been just really important for me as a leader,
Gresham Harkless 15:40
truly appreciate that definition. Of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people can get a whole view on about the conferences, the podcast, all the awesome things that you're working on.
Audra Carpenter 15:56
As far as getting ahold of me, I'm on all the social media platforms. It's just at Audra Carpenter on any of them. You can find me. Please come by and say, hello.
Gresham Harkless 16:05
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And to make it even easier, we're going to have the links and information that show notes as well, too. So that everybody can follow up with you and hear about all the awesome things.
But thank you so much for being that giant today. And I hope you a phenomenal rest of the day.
Audra Carpenter 16:16
Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.
Outro 16:18
Thank you for listening to the I Am CEO podcast. Powered by CB Nation and 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.
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Subscribe and leave us a five-star rating. This has been the I Am CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.
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