1868 – Service Business Strategy with Maiko Sakai of Dreamers & Doers

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0:58with us right now maiko sakai maiko you are a business consultant and strategist working primarily with smbs maiko it's so great to have you your website by the way maiko sakai.com to our friend that's listening just click around in your podcast app you'll see we've got a link directly to maiko's website maiko thank you for joining us thank you so much for having me and i'm so excited to be, you know, in front of your wonderful audience. Let's do it. Yes, absolutely. Well, you have a really interesting background. Do you mind just kind of just sharing a little bit of that background as we kind of talk about the impact that you have in the world today?

1:35Absolutely. I'm going to go with the shorter version. So I was born and raised in Japan. Yokohama is the city that I grew up, but I always wanted to, you know, try my luck elsewhere. So I came to the U.S. and first I thought that I was going to be a musician And I realized I wasn't going to be. So the second best thing was for me to work for a bunch of record labels. And I did a lot of, you know, the finance management, licensing music in and out and doing promotion and marketing, all that great stuff over a decade. And I became a business consultant eventually to cater to creative entrepreneurs.

2:12Wow. What did you play, by the way? Music. I played guitar. No kidding. Oh my God, I'm going to totally date myself. But, you know, I'm, I was in the Guns N' Roses coffee band and I was playing guitar. Wow. So you can play slash? I used to. So now I put it down for some time. So I cannot do it anymore. But I used to be killing it. That's incredible. Oh my gosh. How cool is that? Well, I listen. I'm a huge fan of tribute bands. You know, I started playing bass about six months ago. My son and I play a lot of Nirvana, Rage Against the Machine, and GNR. I don't think I've played a Guns N' Roses song yet.

2:57So I'll have to find a good bass one. I'm sure that there's some good ones out there. Michael, tell me about, you know, given your background, tell me about who you work with today and what that looks like. Yeah, that's a great question. So I work with creative entrepreneurs And the definition of that is, well, I can give more examples. That might be easier. So architects, content creators, digital marketing agencies, graphic designers, web designers, and video production companies. Those are my people. Yeah. So business owners who are in the kind of more on the creative side, what are your observations about that personality?

3:40Yeah, I love this question so much. So they're so great at their craft. So let's just say, you know, you run a video production company, you know so much about, you know, editing the video, shooting, all sorts of things, and they're great at bringing in clients. So they don't need me there. That's not a problem. But the challenge is the inner workings of business. So, you know, once I lift up the hood of that particular business, as an example, I would see a lot of things that we could not only declutter and streamline and get it ready to scale up. So that's where I come in. So I don't want to, you know, interrupt their creative flow.

4:23You know, they're great at bringing in clients. They're great at their crafts. I don't touch there, but I help them with building a solid business. What if they're not good at bringing in clients like, I'm really good at what I do, but I have kind of too much inconsistency. I've had some good months. I've had some good clients. But then, like, I'm not replacing my clients are dropping off and then my cash flow gets hurt and then I feel bad about myself. How would you work with someone in that sort of situation? I've helped with many of those clients as well. So the first off, I will assess which season their business is in.

5:01It's like four seasons. Budding entrepreneurs, I would refer them as the spring season, right? Then the growth stage, summer season. Then their mature stage, that would be the full season. And the last one is whether you're going to sell your business or you're going to give it to your kids, the legacy part of it. And first, I identify that. And if they're having that problem, as budding entrepreneurs, I also have a sales program for that, that they can sort of self-pace the program that they can take. But if they're at the growth stage, that does require a little bit different strategy. So I get to be more hands-on with their sort of lead generation strategies, retention strategies, and also acquisition strategy.

5:52Yeah. Well, tell me what you see working well. So an understanding to that to our friend that's listening, if you fancy yourself a little bit more of that creator personality, that is a superpower. Michael, would you be willing to maybe talk about that a little bit? And kind of the follow up questions I want to ask is how we can use our superpower to be better at attracting more business love it so first off here's the belief that a lot of creatives have which is if i build it they'll come that is the one that we want to tackle first i know you're great at what you do but in this day and age there's so much noise out there and it's so hard to get attention from people nowadays.

6:45So if you build it, they would come, wouldn't work. Now that doesn't mean that they don't have a shot. They have a shot. They just need to be okay with sharing their ideas, sharing their content, sharing their actual products that they built or create unapologetically. So I wanted to first see whether they have that mindset challenge or not. If they don't, that's great. Well, let's get to work on this. Let's get your work out there so that the people get to see. And that's how you would bring in, you know, it's not like a shattering concept, but that's how it works. Just don't get all twisted about, you know, oh, I don't want to be salesy.

7:32I'm not a sellout. I really care about my craft. It's all great. Talk about it. Talk about that and share it even. What is your thinking process? You know, what do you get hung up on? When you hit your creative, you know, writer's block kind of thing, you know, when you hit the wall, what do you do with it? People want to know. So it's not just about your end product that people care. They want to know everything about your process, what you're thinking, how you're feeling, what you're reading, what you're watching. Incorporate all of that to get your work out there. Yeah. So from a social media perspective or from a client attraction perspective, how could we use those superpowers to become this beacon of sorts that can help us attract our ideal connections?

8:25Yeah, that is something that I'm really passionate about. You know, I don't act as a social media strategist per se, but I have a ton of peers and colleagues who have been inspiring me day in and day out. So what I learned, and this is immense, is that it's not so much about, it is important to get your work out, as we discussed, but it's also important to build your community, be part of it, support others. it should probably be 50 50 you know 50 you work on getting your work out in many different format many different ways whether it's a short video or it could be just the audio only message or written content or just visual you can mix it up a little bit that's the 50 but the remainder of it they should be willing to invest their time and energy to support others.

9:24And magic will happen when you actually are genuinely supporting other people's work or tending to their audience, really answering their questions like a Q &A sessions, ask me anything sessions over X or what have you, the possibility is endless. I know that can be overwhelming, but don't be afraid to experiment. Yeah. I would imagine in your work with creatives, AI is a topic that has probably come up in conversation quite a bit. Where are we at right now? And if there's, let's say, there's a creative entrepreneur or business leader listening to us right now, and they might be nervous. They might be freaking out.

10:08What advice would you give them? Well, luckily, as it stands now, it's a very useful tool. When you have this scattered brain and you cannot put a thought together, it could be a great tool as a generative AI. But it's not any better than real creatives who got power in their own words or any visual work, you know, graphics, you know, the AI is also getting into the whole graphic side of things, right? They just, that technology itself is not there to completely replace you. So instead of working from a place of scarcity, just get expansive in terms of a mindset. You know, you are unique and your fingerprint cannot be replicated so easily by technology.

11:05So just have a faith and keep working on your craft so that people will appreciate more and more. Nowadays, people can easily detect which content was generated by AI, you know, straight up and being posted or not. Let's not spend our energy like worrying about it. Instead, just really get to work and keep creating great content. Like I write a lot. I do a long form blog content. That's where my clients come from. They love reading. And I never worry about AI is going to replace me because they just can't write it like I do. Yeah, no, it's absolutely true. Yeah. Anyone that has spent any length of time using ChatGPT can recognize the tapestry of the language is just it's so fake.

12:04You know exactly what I'm talking about like that. Oh, yeah, I speak. It's so cringy. It is like when I see it also, you know, I've shared this before, but, you know, to my leader friends and you've let's say you've got some team members that are using AI tools. for content creation, be very careful because I have seen a lot of just absolutely fake copy and it is such a turnoff. It just feels devoid of humanness. I feel ripped off. It's absolutely worth making sure that you maintain your voice, which is a part of your brand. It's kind of insulting. When you spot it, you don't feel really happy about spotting it.

12:43You feel so insulted. And there are so many businesses, you know, which hire outside, you know, digital marketing agencies. What they don't know is that those agencies are actually using, you know, generative AI tools to deliver the content to those clients, business owners. If you're not checking their work, you might be just putting out something that you shouldn't be putting out. So that's another thing that I would point out. You should be careful. It's your business, right? It's your business being your own command center. So it's okay to delegate to other agencies, other production companies, editors, ghostwriters, no problem there.

13:27There's no judgment, but check their work. Yeah. And by the way, AI is such a wonderful tool. It's really easy to step into new technology and kind of, well, step in some landmines, again, if we're being too hasty with that. Michael, your website, michosakai.com, tell me about very specifically what working with you looks like. yeah so the first thing i highly recommend anyone to take my free quizzes there are two quizzes and one is more of an entry-level entrepreneur quiz and the second one is all about finding and discovering your profitable niche so i recommend taking both of them see how it's like you know like what is it like for you to get the full results from those quizzes.

14:23If they like what they see, then just contact me directly. You know, I don't have a VA to really front face with my prospects and clients and the customers. I like to do that work myself and I don't delegate that part. So if you have any questions, just reach out. There are ways to reach out to me via email or over social media. and we'll discuss it. There are three different programs that I have, but without getting into all the nitty gritty of it, just take the quizzes and see how it goes. Yeah, and again, mycosakai.com. Just when you get there, just browse around. You'll find the quizzes. I love quizzes.

15:06And the quizzes that you develop, it's almost like, you know, remember the days of like getting a magazine and then you'd like answer these quizzes in the magazine to find out like what your personality is or just give you some insights. So yeah, that's what you've created. Well, Michael, I love this. For someone that's listening to us, and let's say that they are experiencing a couple of things in their business, like how might they know that they need to reach out and connect with you sooner rather than later? Yeah, that's a great question. There are many different signs, but I can share a few.

15:40For example, if you're facing something like, I don't seem to be able to keep my team intact, like a high turnover rate or something like that. All I want to do is to build an A team. That could be a sign. Another sign is that I'm totally stretched out, completely thin because I wanted to cater to everyone. So I have 11 different offers and I don't seem to be able to manage every single one of them. That could be another sign. So let's talk about niching down in your business so that you can generate more revenues by focusing on only a handful. And I walk the walk. That's what I do in my own business.

16:22That's another sign. Yeah, excellent. Maiko Sakai, again, you're a consultant coach and found on the web at MaikoSakai.com. Maiko, thank you so much for joining us. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Thank you for having me.

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