Corporate taboos to entrepreneurial superpowers | Ep. 6 Content Magic with Lindsay Smith

In this solo episode, I'm chatting about some of the things about me and my personality that weren't exactly celebrated in the corporate world. And, how these exact same things have become my superpowers as an entrepreneur. 


00:00 Meeting of creatives and client services explained.

06:04 Journalism and advertising demand constant idea generation.

06:52 Simplify creation process, get approval, client review.

12:53 Part-time work complements full-time career.

14:05 Worked intermittently at independent toy store.

Speaker A [00:00:03]:
If you have an online business, you're creating content. And the way you create content is more important than ever. It's really noisy out there, and learning to stand out is the only way.

Speaker B [00:00:15]:
Hey, I'm Lindsay, and I'm the host.

Speaker A [00:00:17]:
Of the content Magic podcast, all about being an entrepreneur and creating kick ass content to market yourself and your business.

Speaker B [00:00:24]:
Hi.

Speaker A [00:00:25]:
Have a not so secret superpower for copywriting, marketing and content. And I've helped hundreds of folks just like you show up with a ton of confidence in the online space. I've been doing this content thing for 20 years, and I believe the real magic is a combo of intuition, creativity, and strategy. You can create content for your business without losing your mind, I promise. So tune in every week for tangible content, tips, inspiring guests, and some real spicy opinions. Probably mine.

Speaker B [00:00:56]:
Ready to dive in? Let's go. Hey, welcome back to the podcast. It's me. It's me, Lindsay. So something I've been thinking about a lot is most of us get into entrepreneurship because we've had a certain amount of experience in a full time job or in a corporate job. And if you listen to my first episode, you know that it's no different for me. I worked as a journalist and I worked in advertising for a very long time. And advertising is an interesting industry.

Speaker B [00:01:34]:
Like many corporate jobs, even the government, there's a lot of politics and there's, like, favoritism, and it's a bit of a popularity contest. So the popular kids get all the good, fun projects, and it's also a very insular community. So there's like award shows in advertising that nobody outside the industry really cares about.

Speaker C [00:02:03]:
So I just was thinking about some.

Speaker B [00:02:06]:
Of the things that made me me during my time in advertising and how those things were frowned upon. And now, as an entrepreneur, those are the things that actually work in my favor.

Speaker C [00:02:22]:
So let's dive into those. So the biggest one, I was in.

Speaker B [00:02:27]:
A meeting once with a bunch of other creative types. So when you're a copywriter, you're called a creative, or if you're an art director, you're called a creative. And then there's the other side, which is client services. So those are the people who are more client facing. They deal with budgets, they deal with creative briefs. So the client services people will get something from a client being like, listen, this is the thing we need to advertise or whatever. This event, for example, these are the numbers we need to hit. This is the media we bought.

Speaker B [00:03:03]:
Like, it's a billboard, it's a tv spot. It's a radio spot, whatever it is. And then the client people brief us, creative types, and be like, listen, this is the project. This is what we need. Come up with a bunch of ideas. So essentially, that was my job, coming up with ideas. I was in this meeting with a bunch of other creative types, some client services types, some vps, whatever. I forget what we were working on.

Speaker B [00:03:32]:
Maybe Cirque du Soleil.

Speaker C [00:03:33]:
I forget.

Speaker B [00:03:34]:
Anyways, something about me is that all of my emotions are very obvious on my face. I make a lot of facial expressions and not even my emotions, probably just, like, my thoughts. Like, I'll make a face and I don't notice that I'm doing it.

Speaker C [00:03:53]:
So in this meeting, I guess I.

Speaker B [00:03:56]:
Was making faces, and one of the vps called me aside, and he's like.

Speaker C [00:04:01]:
Lindsay, you have to not, like, you can't make those faces.

Speaker B [00:04:06]:
All of your thoughts are very obvious on your face, and you can't do that. Like, you can't do that in front of all of these really fancy people. And I was like, but that's just my face. So I was kind of told that.

Speaker C [00:04:19]:
That was a no no, and you.

Speaker B [00:04:21]:
Can'T really control your face. And I don't even know what I was doing. Moving my eyebrows.

Speaker C [00:04:26]:
I don't know. I don't know what I was doing. So now that I run my own.

Speaker B [00:04:33]:
Business, it's something that is celebrated because it means that I'm very transparent, right? And I will tell you exactly what I think. And this usually comes in the form of when clients come to me and they have a fear of showing up or they need help writing an email, and they're like, I'm too scared to send it. I don't know why I don't want to send this. I don't think it's written well. I'll be like, what are you talking about? This is amazing. And that will come across on my face. And if I'm working with someone through the fear of showing up online, I'll.

Speaker C [00:05:12]:
Be like, listen, you have this, this.

Speaker B [00:05:16]:
And this and this going for you. What are you afraid of? And usually, for the most part, people are afraid of what people are going to think.

Speaker C [00:05:23]:
So we work through that.

Speaker B [00:05:24]:
So more often than not, my facial expressions make me more relatable because it's obvious that I'm not a robot. And everything I'm thinking and feeling is very obvious. So it's very much like what you.

Speaker C [00:05:43]:
See is what you know.

Speaker B [00:05:46]:
I'm not business Lindsay, and at home Lindsay, it's all the same, Lindsay.

Speaker C [00:05:51]:
So it's the same.

Speaker B [00:05:52]:
So I think my clients get a certain amount of confidence from that because they know exactly who they're working with. The way I show up online and the way I show up for my.

Speaker C [00:06:01]:
Clients is exactly the same. Number two.

Speaker B [00:06:04]:
So, like I said, working full time. So I worked in, like, an idea business. So even when I was working as a journalist, you have to show up at the story meeting every day with a bunch of ideas and being like, okay, this happened, here's how I'm going to follow up on it. Or you make up an idea or whatever, right? So they're obviously in journalism, there has to be some truth to it. But still, there's like a pressure to come up with these ideas that you have to report on for the day. And when I worked in advertising, it was the same thing. Like I explained, you get this creative brief and you have to come up with a bunch of different ideas for whatever the ad was that you were working on. So let's say you were working on a billboard, for example.

Speaker B [00:06:52]:
It would have to be fairly simple. It would have to be an image, a really cool headline. So this could take several days, right? And then there was like an approval process. So on the creative side, there was someone called a creative director. So you'd have to bring all your ideas to that creative director, and then eventually you present all the best. And that creative director would be like, okay, this is good, this is good, this isn't good. And then we'd have to present it to the client services team and they would be like, okay, this works, this works. This doesn't.

Speaker C [00:07:23]:
And then eventually you'd present it to the client.

Speaker B [00:07:25]:
So during this process, and not just me, many people were often told like.

Speaker C [00:07:30]:
No, that's not good.

Speaker B [00:07:32]:
No, it's not a good idea.

Speaker C [00:07:33]:
No, that idea is dumb.

Speaker B [00:07:35]:
So your ideas are often, you're just told, no, you have to start over. That's not good. Especially if you're working on a pitch. So agencies have to pitch their business, like usually, I don't know. So let's say it's like an airline or something. And the airline is like, hey, we're looking for a new agency you can pitch for the business this day. This day, this day, whatever. So when you're pitching, it's like a huge, long process, because obviously the agency wants to present the best ideas, the best strategies, the best everything.

Speaker B [00:08:11]:
So there's even more pressure. So that is like a monster of a creative process. And so in those cases, because there's.

Speaker C [00:08:25]:
A ton of pressure. You're often told that's not a good.

Speaker B [00:08:28]:
Idea, that it's not going to work. So you're told that again and again and again.

Speaker C [00:08:33]:
Right.

Speaker B [00:08:34]:
Whereas now in entrepreneur life, there's like a certain amount of intuition because it's your own thing. It's my own brand, it's my own, like, Lindsay Smith creative is me, so no idea is dumb, really.

Speaker C [00:08:53]:
And you can kind know if you listen to my episode with Amy, we.

Speaker B [00:08:59]:
Talked a lot about community and building community and having that community. So now I get this incredible community of other entrepreneurs and we kind of.

Speaker C [00:09:08]:
Just get to bounce ideas, but we.

Speaker B [00:09:12]:
Never tell each other that's a stupid idea or that's not going to work. We kind of just guide each other through trying to figure it out on our own.

Speaker C [00:09:21]:
So it's different when you're working on.

Speaker B [00:09:24]:
Your own stuff versus when you're working.

Speaker C [00:09:27]:
On someone else's brand.

Speaker B [00:09:30]:
And these were big brands I'm working on, right? Like Adidas and Dell computers and Red Bull and L'Oreal.

Speaker C [00:09:38]:
They're big names, so it's a lot different. So I can do whatever I want.

Speaker B [00:09:50]:
All of my ideas just come out of thin air and I'm like, cool, that would be a cool master class idea. Or, oh, this is a content idea, or, oh, yeah, that would be a great email. Oh, yeah, that would be a good email sequence. Ooh, I have an idea for a course. So it's all my own ideas, and it's really about just trusting yourself to.

Speaker C [00:10:11]:
Follow through on them.

Speaker B [00:10:14]:
Yeah, for sure. We all have our doubts, and sometimes I talk myself out of things, but you kind of know. You have an inner knowing of what's right and what feels aligned and what is just a random thought and what is something that you're like, okay, I feel really excited about this. I'm going to follow through and I'm.

Speaker C [00:10:32]:
Going to make it happen.

Speaker B [00:10:34]:
And then the third thing that was not super celebrated when I worked full time, especially in advertising, was sort of.

Speaker C [00:10:45]:
Pushing back when I saw something that wasn't right.

Speaker B [00:10:51]:
And again, right, like, it's you're you. Your job is to come up with a bunch of ideas and present them to this, these various committees of people. And sometimes I would push back and be like, that doesn't, like, I'm not sure about this strategy. Like, can we talk to the client about this?

Speaker C [00:11:05]:
Or are you sure this is the.

Speaker B [00:11:08]:
Right way to go?

Speaker C [00:11:10]:
So those instincts were sort of shoved.

Speaker B [00:11:14]:
Down and not to anyone's discredit it's just kind of like, when you're working for these massive brands, they're like a machine. So any kind of pushback? I was just told, like, no, just stay in line and do what you're.

Speaker C [00:11:30]:
Told kind of thing.

Speaker B [00:11:32]:
And now, again, right, I can push back and be like, especially when it comes to things that are not aligned. Sometimes it's a client, sometimes it's something someone else told me to do. Someone told me once a certain way to do outbound marketing, and I was like, okay, I guess I'll do that. And I did it for like a month. And I was like, this feels not good. So I just stopped doing it because I was like, this doesn't feel aligned.

Speaker C [00:12:06]:
With me, but when you work full.

Speaker B [00:12:09]:
Time, you don't have that. You don't have that luxury. Being like, this doesn't feel aligned with me.

Speaker C [00:12:14]:
Thanks, bye.

Speaker B [00:12:14]:
I don't want to do this project.

Speaker C [00:12:16]:
You just have to do the project. And another thing that we don't really.

Speaker B [00:12:21]:
Talk about in entrepreneurship is that so many of us and so many of you either have a part time job or you work full time. And this entrepreneur thing is on the side. And I think there's this weird pressure.

Speaker C [00:12:39]:
That you have to make your own.

Speaker B [00:12:44]:
Business work so you can quit everything else. But I'm not sure that's the truth.

Speaker C [00:12:50]:
One, I'm sure many of you really.

Speaker B [00:12:53]:
Like your full time job. And two, I don't think there's any shame in having a part time job and doing this other thing. So I don't know why there's this strange pressure of, if you're not all in on your entrepreneurial gig, then you're not serious. I don't really believe that. And I think here in Canada, anyway, if you have a full time job, you probably have health insurance. Some people have a. So, like, those are real grown up things we don't want to just scrap.

Speaker C [00:13:37]:
And also, we hear this all the time.

Speaker B [00:13:41]:
Multiple streams of income, multiple streams of income, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I think that counts. Having a part time job or you're working full time and you're doing this in the evenings, on the weekends, or whatever, right?

Speaker C [00:13:52]:
So I just want anybody who has.

Speaker B [00:13:56]:
A part time job or works full time and they're doing this entrepreneur thing on the side, I just want you.

Speaker C [00:14:01]:
To know that there's no rules about it.

Speaker B [00:14:05]:
I've worked on and off at an independent toy store over the years of me, when I started freelancing, when I only had copywriting clients, I've done it on and off because one, having a reason to put pants on and go outside of the house and maybe put mascara on was pretty exciting. Two, being around other people and talking.

Speaker C [00:14:32]:
To customers was kind of exciting. And also the street where this toy.

Speaker B [00:14:38]:
Store is, they had really good restaurants. So I got really excited for my half hour lunch break to go get something really delicious. So that's the thing, right? There's no one way to do this. And I think whoever is telling you that if you're not only doing your.

Speaker C [00:15:03]:
Running your business that it's a failure or whatever, I think you tell those people to just shut up.

Speaker B [00:15:11]:
So I'd love to hear from you.

Speaker C [00:15:13]:
If you did have a corporate career.

Speaker B [00:15:17]:
And you have moved to entrepreneurship full time, I'd love to hear from you.

Speaker C [00:15:21]:
Like, what are some of the things that you were kind of shat on.

Speaker B [00:15:27]:
In your full time job and are.

Speaker C [00:15:30]:
Now something you celebrate?

Speaker B [00:15:32]:
So that's it for me for this one, guys, and we'll see you next time. Toodleoo.

Speaker A [00:15:38]:
Thank you so much for listening. If you loved what you heard, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, or share this episode on social media. And don't forget to tag me on.

Speaker B [00:15:46]:
Instagram at Lindsay Smith Creative.

Speaker A [00:15:49]:
And if you do all three, I'll be your best friend forever and invite you to all my birthday parties. That's it for today, and I'll see you next time. Bye.