Today’s guest Kevin Ferrasci O’Malley (aka KFOM) really helped us realize it’s okay to bring things back to the basics. Even if you’re someone who has been a very successful serial entrepreneur and small business owner for over 30 years. Kevin shares how, in recent years, he has gone against his own business school training to launch three projects simultaneously because he’s simply having a blast.
Check out today’s episode if you want to learn Kevin’s personal lessons on how to survive the twists and turns of building a successful business.
Share Some Shut Up Love –> You started the business for a reason. What is that reason? – @KFOM #shutupshow (click to tweet)
Fun Facts:
- Kevin is a passionate, small business owner helping clients be more successful with their mobile, social and location marketing.
- Kevin has over 30 years as a small business owner working with thousands of fellow small business owner clients.
- Kevin has experience in Chamber Commerce leadership.
- Kevin is an introverted professional speaker who is married to an extremely extroverted wife of 35 years. Together they have 2 great kids and a malamute.
- Kevin has previously worked in selling and marketing surgical products and security alarms.
Defining Shut Up Moment:
There are certainly times you financially hit the wall and you go “How am I going to make the house payment?” It’s either gonna work out or you’re gonna put the house on the market. The what-ifs are the biggest boogie man to keep in line because the amount of energy necessary to keep a business moving forward, when you’re self-employed, is so much that there’s not enough psychic energy to spend time worrying. If you have the confidence to know you know what you know and you don’t know what you don’t know, it’s gonna work out.
You went this way. You had two options. You went that way and it took you on a different path.
If being in control is really important to you, I’d probably challenge you whether it’s a good idea to be in your own business. You aren’t in control. Being in business for yourself is wonderful except for the customers and employees. When you get to 100 employees, it was like, “Am I running a half way house? I don’t know if this is what my mission was.”
Shut Up Tips:
Everyone who gets in business for themselves is because they’re smarter than the other guy or have a better way of doing things. – Kevin
There’s an openness to really making a connection and a contribution. If I’m trying to make a contribution, I think focusing on “poor me” really goes away. – Kevin
You can always learn something, even from a bad teacher. As long as you’re learning something, you’re growing. – Kevin
If the heart is in the right place, where I’m making a contribution to them, the focus is not on me. It’s on them and the interaction. From that standpoint–as an introvert–I don’t find this hard to do. – Kevin
If I can help, the fear melts away at that point because I’m connecting with you and I can understand how I can be of service or value. The rest of it doesn’t matter. – Kevin
People talk about the fear of public speaking. But it’s about the message, it’s not about me. – Kevin
You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him. ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (via Berni)
Sometimes we just want to do good for the sake of the doing and should not have to apologize for that. – Berni
When we shift our focus from self to service, we are able to make a bigger difference and overcome that fear. – Phil
You started the business for a reason. What is that reason? – Kevin
Simple, but not easy. That’s the gist of all business if you think of it. – Phil
If it’s the right kind of business, you can break away. I got to work 50% and I got to choose which 12 hours a day it was. – Kevin
The biggest stumbling block I see with business owners, they understand how to open their business but they don’t know how to market or sell to draw in new customers. If you don’t quickly connect that, a lot of great ideas and passion don’t launch because you don’t have that skill set. – Kevin
Being in business for yourself can be a very solitary situation. It would be lonely if you don’t have anybody you can share with. – Kevin
Let go of control. Listen to help. Ask for help. – Kevin
Kevin Recommends:
Where Have All The Woolly Mammoths Gone? A Small Business Survival Manual – by Ted S. Frost
The E-Myth Revisited – by Michael E. Gerber
Find Kevin:
MyMemberBenefit.com – online training and educational classes helping Chambers of Commerce to attract new members and retain current members
1stScreenMobile.com – a place where small business owners and managers can learn and share how this transformational thing called “mobile ” is impacting their business
Kevin is @KFom on Twitter