[00:00:27] Jay: Hi everyone. Welcome to The First Customer podcast. My name is Jay Aigner today. I am lucky enough to be joined by Darleen Priday, CEO and founder of DP Consults. Darleen, how are you?
[00:00:39] Darleen: Good. Thank you for having me, Jay.
[00:00:41] Jay: You're very welcome. It's very nice to, you're from Jersey originally, you said, and, down now down in Orlando. tell me where you started and did that have any, you know, where'd you grow up and did that have any impact on you being an entrepreneur later in life?
[00:00:53] Darleen: Yeah. So, I grew up in New Jersey and I went the route of, you know, going to college and I was always in sales in some aspect of sales. Retail fashion industry is where I began. I have two brothers that are entrepreneurs and I had always worked for a company and really enjoyed it, but I always had my space was always, I had a lot of freedom to build my role and to really move the needle in the company.
So I was able to work for small businesses and work closely with founders. So I learned a lot through those years.
[00:01:33] Jay: Beautiful. and what was the first business you actually started?
[00:01:37] Darleen: it is DP consults was my first business and I do, consulting for smaller businesses, coaches, entrepreneurs that really have a successful business, but they still have an issue when they're selling their own services. They feel like it's icky or in an inauthentic.
[00:02:00] Jay: Tell me a little more about that. when you say they feel it's icky or inauthentic, what do you mean?
[00:02:06] Darleen: So you know, I've had the blessing of being around entrepreneurs my whole life and I can see when I was networking or even, working with entrepreneurs, I would hear them share about their business and just absolutely light up and be excited. You know, we know that when you're building your business, you put your heart and soul into that. And then. It was almost like when they started to talk about selling their services, the life drained out of them and they would become stiff. They would not know they would feel defeated. Like, oh, I had a conversation and somebody said no, and really take it personally to which I understand that part of it. so I was seeing a reoccurring trend where so many people had amazing things and they knew they did. But when they put on their sales hat, it just deflated.
[00:03:01] Jay: And what's the biggest reason for that? Do you think?
[00:03:04] Darleen: I think it's a mind shift like anything else, right? When people think about doing a role of sales, they feel like they feel inadequate. They feel like they don't know how to sell. They feel like they don't want to come across pushy. They maybe have experienced. Bad salespeople in the past where they're just, you know, they don't want to be that person or they may have taken a course or talk to people that may be successful in sales, but it's not authentic to them.
So they're trying to ship themselves to make them fit into someone else's package, which again, never works in anything in life.
[00:03:48] Jay: So how did you get your first customer? with DP consults?
[00:03:52] Darleen: So my first customer was actually before I even started the business. I was networking and I was just encouraging someone who had an incredible business. They were a business coach and they were just sharing where they were struggling. And I just, you know, I guess it's like everybody else's own a genius, right?
When it's so natural to you, you don't feel like it may be that valuable. And I just started sharing some things and like her eyes lit up. She was like, Oh my gosh, like. To me, it was like second nature. Like how does somebody not know this? so I worked with her and, we actually bartered and she helped me with some of the business concepts and packages and different things like that. And I helped her with her sales and getting. those talking points, getting those cadences right. And, we just collaborated and then it was one other person. I still didn't. See, like I was still kind of fleshing it out. So, I beta tested for a long time, probably longer than most people would.
but I also am dual careered. So I was trying to do a balancing act and,that's how it eventually just, I kind of packaged it and saw what was working for most of the people that I had worked with.
[00:05:20] Jay: A couple things. Do you recommend business owners take some sort of sales training? Or can they figure it out along the way?
[00:05:34] Darleen: I think it depends on the person. I always tell. The people that I work with, they are there, you know, entrepreneurs who start a business are the best salesperson period. I've seen people make that mistake where they hire somebody that is. you know, they don't know how to hire a salesperson because it's so foreign to them.
So they're not even looking at what that person needs to do, or are they in alignment with their business? So they're going to be their best salesperson. The reason why I think my clients are so successful after going, I'm not training them how to sell. I'm empowering them with what they already know and making it authentic to them. It is. Custom. The principles are there, but it's custom to who they are. You cannot sell like me. That's not going to come across authentic to your clients.
Um, somebody else, you know, I'm not going to make them Darleen. I'm going to take their giftings, their personality, and be able to enable them to use that to be authentic and to build their business.
[00:06:46] Jay: talk to me about building this business while having another job and why have you gone that route? And do you foresee that ending at any point?
[00:07:01] Darleen: Yeah. So everybody has their own, goals and objectives. And my story is a little bit different. Like my husband two years ago had, heart issues, several strokes, he's disabled. I am the only income. I do need that stability of insurance and all of those different things. and I also love what I do.
I love selling for someone else and I enjoy the role of business development. So I love that part of it and building the business. I made it where it's manageable for me. it's probably not scalable at this point if I wanted to do it just full time, I would have to repackage my offerings and different things like that, but it's manageable.
And my goal was to create something where I can really help people in and put it in a box where it's going to move the needle for them and really. Help me, really just keep flexing my entrepreneurial muscles and all of those different things. So it really feeds my soul opposed to just being a side gig or anything like that. so for me, it's right now, I don't see that ending anytime soon. And also I really want to work with the people that I want to handpick. and work with them. I take two clients a month. I don't want to mass produce this. I don't right now. Right. I don't know what the future is going to hold, who knows. but right now this is just the way that I want to work. And if I was depending on it for my, you know, a hundred percent of my income, I would probably have to make many different choices than I'm doing now.
[00:08:57] Jay: Yeah, I think that's totally fair. I think you hit it right when you said the first bit, the goals for everybody's business are different, can different and should be different. Right? I mean, there's this. overarching thought that you have to go take over the world and be this, work a hundred hours a week and just, you know, go full bore and everything you're doing.
But, you know, I think there's a lot to be said about supplemental income, doing something you enjoy starting a business. Maybe that lays the groundwork for something bigger later, but if it's serving the purpose right now, you know, I think that's, it's what you want it to be. Right. And that's the, you're the business owner.
And I think that's great.
[00:09:36] Darleen: And I even reinforced that with my clients. Part of my, discovery call with them is to find out what's their, why, what are their goals? Like you said, not everybody just wants like to build a million dollar, like millions of dollars built business or get more and more. Everybody has a different goal, but I also think that there's like an entrepreneurial shaming out there now, right?
Everybody has to be bigger, better, best. Oh, if you work for somebody, you're, you know, you're an idiot. Well, I've had an incredible 30 year career working for other people and I've been blessed by it and I've enjoyed it. yeah. And entrepreneurs will need people to work for them eventually too if they grow. So the fact is that this rhetoric of, you know, if you don't work for yourself, you're a fool or whatever. I don't buy into that.
[00:10:28] Jay: Yeah, I think that's fair. I think it's, that's a great point. what are your methods of kind of bringing in business at this point? Is it all just word of mouth referrals or do you do any outbound stuff? Like what's your kind of your goals, around marketing for the platform
[00:10:42] Darleen: Yeah. So for me, I just do a lot of networking. I do a lot of podcasts and that has brought a lot of, people to me. I also do strategic partnerships, referral programs. Again, I don't want a ton of clients. So two clients a month, though, that fills up pretty quickly. with the, just within my network of Who I'm interacting with on the regular basis. there are probably, there's going to probably be a time when I'm going to need to do more marketing around, around that. But for now, it has just come more organically through word of mouth and people that I'm working with.
[00:11:23] Jay: Yeah, the trust factor is important in a business like yours. So I think that networking component, it probably works really well, right? I mean, that's kind of part of the networking model is to. meet people, let them know who you actually are, get them to trust you and show them that they can trust you, show them that you can trust you and then, you know, win their business.
if you decide that you want to go after it. So I love that. why don't we do this? Give me, three things health wise that you're doing on a daily basis, weekly basis, whatever, to keep your longevity up. What are you doing as a business owner and as an employee, what are you doing to kind of make sure you're healthy for as long as possible?
[00:12:02] Darleen: Yeah. So that is important. And also I'm a caretaker as well. So I always
say I can't go down, right? Like, I cannot go down. So, first and foremost, I exercise every day. Some like either like I alternate weights, cardio. We're in Florida. swim a lot, love being in the pool. so that is super important, especially when I am on, you know, video 10 hours a day, I have to move.
I drink. tons of water, and I think that is important too. And you know, I take a lot of supplements, greens, all of that. And then just recently I have been bad about this is just kind of making an effort to get to the doctor, do my regular checkups and stuff. It's so easy to put yourself last when you're caring for someone else. but again, if I go down, it's not going to be good. So, it's important to just, you know, I'm not a big doctor person, but there is a need and just making sure that you know, you're not neglecting yourself.
[00:13:08] Jay: a great point and reminding me that I have to schedule my annual checkup, so thank you for that. all right, let's wrap with this. If you could do anything in the world, non-business related and you knew you couldn't fail, maybe a bucket list item, something like that, what would it be?
[00:13:24] Darleen: So I guess it's like, it's not more about failure. Failure, but like if I, if money wasn't an issue,
I'd probably be feeding people. I'm from a big Italian family. it breaks my heart where I see these kids at school that are, have food insecurity and different things like that. So I would just probably do something related to feeding people.
[00:13:52] Jay: Okay. I like that. my wife is, they say they're Italian. I'm still not convinced they'd eat Italian for sure.
[00:13:59] Darleen: those are fighting words. Come on.
[00:14:01] Jay: Well, there's so much Irish in there. And then, you know, there's like some British mixed in it's a bunch of stuff, but my mother in law is, I mean, her last name is Forgoli. So, I mean, I can't really, you know, deny him too much, but, they do the big Italian meals.
So I, you know, there's never a, you never walk away hungry. You always walk away with some extra food. So I can get down with that. All right. if you want to find you or DP Consults, how do they do that?
[00:14:26] Darleen: Yeah. So they can go to my website, dpconsults.Com, or I'm really active on LinkedIn, connect with me. I'd love to have virtual coffee, chat, and, certainly if someone needs some encouragement, I'm here to help.
[00:14:43] Jay: Beautiful. Well, loved our conversation. Love what you're doing. And, you have a good rest of your week, a good weekend. Stay away from the alligators down there in Florida. And, I'll talk to you again soon. All right, Darleen. Thank you.
[00:14:54] Darleen: Thanks, Jay. It was a
[00:14:55] Jay: See ya. Bye bye.