Redefining Success on Your Own Terms with Kym Insana | RR314

Janice Porter: 00:00:02

Kim, hello and welcome to this week's episode

Janice Porter: 00:00:05

of relationships rule the show, where we explore the power of

Janice Porter: 00:00:08

authentic connection in business and beyond. Today's guest Kim

Janice Porter: 00:00:13

insana is the founder of always on digital, a seven figure

Janice Porter: 00:00:17

marketing agency delivering real results for major brands. Her

Janice Porter: 00:00:21

journey to success wasn't a straight line. After leaving

Janice Porter: 00:00:25

demanding a demanding corporate role, and while juggling the

Janice Porter: 00:00:28

responsibilities of raising three and then then then four

Janice Porter: 00:00:32

boys, Kim decided to build something different. She created

Janice Porter: 00:00:36

a business that not only serves clients, but empowers other

Janice Porter: 00:00:39

women to pursue success without sacrificing family. In this

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episode, we'll explore how Kim turned a career setback into a

Janice Porter: 00:00:47

mission driven company, how relationships are the heart of

Janice Porter: 00:00:51

her growth, and why redefining success is sometimes the first

Janice Porter: 00:00:55

step toward truly living it a bit long but welcome to the

Janice Porter: 00:00:59

show, Kim, and thanks for waiting patiently while I shared

Janice Porter: 00:01:03

about your background.

Kym Insana: 00:01:04

Thank you so much, Dennis, I'm so happy to be here

Kym Insana: 00:01:07

with you. You are

Janice Porter: 00:01:08

very welcome. I'm actually, I was inspired by your

Janice Porter: 00:01:12

by your story, and I wondered if you'd share a little bit about

Janice Porter: 00:01:15

your backstory, because I know that you kind of walked away

Janice Porter: 00:01:18

from your corporate career, and there was some things around it

Janice Porter: 00:01:22

that, did you have the aha moment in the middle of a

Janice Porter: 00:01:25

downsizing, or what? What was it? So

Kym Insana: 00:01:28

I think, to your point about redefining what

Kym Insana: 00:01:32

success is, is kind of the light bulb that went off for me

Kym Insana: 00:01:36

because I had three kids at the time, I was really struggling

Kym Insana: 00:01:41

with the office hours and getting to where I needed to be

Kym Insana: 00:01:45

by the end of the day, after school pickups, being late

Kym Insana: 00:01:48

constantly and struggling to leave the office and make my

Kym Insana: 00:01:52

commute. And I felt like I had just so many balls in the air

Kym Insana: 00:01:55

between trying to make work happy, grow in my career and go

Kym Insana: 00:01:59

into a leadership roles and then be able to be there for my

Kym Insana: 00:02:02

family and for me, the aha moment was really just being

Kym Insana: 00:02:07

with my kids one day and realizing I only have barely an

Kym Insana: 00:02:10

hour with them at night, and that hour is dinner and bedtime

Kym Insana: 00:02:15

and bath. And anyone who has kids that are in the you know,

Kym Insana: 00:02:19

two year old range understands that's the worst time of day.

Kym Insana: 00:02:22

It's like the witching hour, and it wasn't as enjoyable as I

Kym Insana: 00:02:25

wanted to be. And then I ended up realizing on the weekends,

Kym Insana: 00:02:28

you're struggling to clean the house or make sure they have

Kym Insana: 00:02:31

activities and do your grocery shopping, and so much just was

Kym Insana: 00:02:35

going on that I felt like there has to be a better way to

Kym Insana: 00:02:38

support working mothers. And I had gone to our CEO, I saw that

Kym Insana: 00:02:43

they had a pattern of helping other businesses get started and

Kym Insana: 00:02:47

invest in them, and then they would help them, you know, go on

Kym Insana: 00:02:50

their way and look at this successful business arm that we

Kym Insana: 00:02:53

have now. And so I had approached our CEO early on, you

Kym Insana: 00:02:59

know, like at the end of the year, and they had said, Well,

Kym Insana: 00:03:01

you know, it's a sales organization. You have to give

Kym Insana: 00:03:03

us, you know, a few months to get through. And what ended up

Kym Insana: 00:03:07

happening is they were doing a massive layoff. They put me as

Kym Insana: 00:03:10

part of it, which worked out because I had a little bit of

Kym Insana: 00:03:13

cushion to get started. I think there was a second moment of

Kym Insana: 00:03:18

panic once it did happen, I realized that I had to do this

Kym Insana: 00:03:23

many days. I thought maybe I should just go get a regular job

Kym Insana: 00:03:26

again. But once I started have a little time at home with my kids

Kym Insana: 00:03:30

and could be there and attend things, I felt like this was the

Kym Insana: 00:03:34

right move. And success does not have to be how much money you're

Kym Insana: 00:03:39

making. Obviously, we need to make money to live and and have

Kym Insana: 00:03:43

a fulfilling life the way we want it. But it's not a race to

Kym Insana: 00:03:47

see how much we can make. And obviously being in sales driven

Kym Insana: 00:03:50

roles, that is the mentality. But I thought that there could

Kym Insana: 00:03:55

be a better way to kind of have a little bit of everything.

Kym Insana: 00:03:58

Maybe you don't have it all of everything, but you have the,

Kym Insana: 00:04:01

you know, the satisfaction in having a career, making some

Kym Insana: 00:04:05

good money, being able to help others, and then, most

Kym Insana: 00:04:09

importantly, be able to be there in your family's life and not

Kym Insana: 00:04:12

have them feel, you know, like you're never there. And you know

Kym Insana: 00:04:17

one moment for me when my oldest son, he's 18 now, he was in

Kym Insana: 00:04:22

preschool, and they had a journal that they would write,

Kym Insana: 00:04:25

and it was really them drawing pictures, and the teacher would

Kym Insana: 00:04:27

translate what it said, and every single one of the pages

Kym Insana: 00:04:31

that my son drew about me, which was a lot, was about how mommy

Kym Insana: 00:04:34

goes to the city to make money. Mommy is at work. I hear mommy's

Kym Insana: 00:04:39

keys coming because I was the last person to come at daycare,

Kym Insana: 00:04:43

and all of these things that well, he didn't mean anything by

Kym Insana: 00:04:46

it, and he, luckily, doesn't have any trauma from it. Now, I

Kym Insana: 00:04:51

felt horrible about it, and so much guilt, and I didn't want, I

Kym Insana: 00:04:55

don't think that that's how we should be living our life. It

Kym Insana: 00:04:57

doesn't seem that doesn't seem to make any sense. Sense to me,

Kym Insana: 00:05:01

for myself or anyone.

Janice Porter: 00:05:04

Yeah, that's a I guess, in my own little way, I

Janice Porter: 00:05:08

did a similar thing, because I taught school, and I always

Janice Porter: 00:05:12

thought I would always be a teacher, and that actually was a

Janice Porter: 00:05:15

good job for being a parent, because I was a single parent

Janice Porter: 00:05:19

with my first daughter up until she was six or eight, but she

Janice Porter: 00:05:24

got to come to the school where I taught after the preschool bit

Janice Porter: 00:05:28

and everything, and my hours allowed me to pick her up and

Janice Porter: 00:05:33

have her be there and so on. But pick her up, I'd let her go to

Janice Porter: 00:05:38

after school daycare in a home nearby the school, but she was

Janice Porter: 00:05:41

close by, but I didn't like the bureaucracy in the teaching

Janice Porter: 00:05:47

profession that I wasn't totally happy, so I left and did

Janice Porter: 00:05:52

something else, became a contractor and taught or trained

Janice Porter: 00:05:56

in a professional environment as a corporate trainer. However, as

Janice Porter: 00:05:59

a contractor, I was able to call my shots a little bit, but I

Janice Porter: 00:06:03

had, there were sacrifices in doing that. I didn't get the

Janice Porter: 00:06:06

pension at the end of the day, right? I didn't have the steady

Janice Porter: 00:06:09

it was if I chose not to work because I was going to a

Janice Porter: 00:06:13

basketball tournament or I was going to whatever, then that was

Janice Porter: 00:06:17

my choice, and that, to me, was more important. So I sense what

Janice Porter: 00:06:21

you were doing, and I really admire you for doing that,

Janice Porter: 00:06:25

because we have kids. They need us, right? And so the

Janice Porter: 00:06:29

flexibility, I think, is the piece that that was so important

Janice Porter: 00:06:34

for me. I know it wasn't. It sounds like it was for you, too.

Janice Porter: 00:06:37

So would you say, I have a question here that I'm not

Janice Porter: 00:06:41

really sure that I want to ask, but I'm going to switch it up a

Janice Porter: 00:06:43

little bit. It says my question I've written down is, as a

Janice Porter: 00:06:46

mother of four and a successful business owner, how do you

Janice Porter: 00:06:49

approach work life balance today, and what strategies have

Janice Porter: 00:06:52

helped you? And I don't think work life balance is is a thing.

Janice Porter: 00:06:57

I think you choose, you know you it's not like 5050, or 64 it's

Janice Porter: 00:07:02

not like that, right? I don't see it that way. And I hope when

Janice Porter: 00:07:05

asking the question, you understand that. So, yeah, okay,

Janice Porter: 00:07:09

it's a

Kym Insana: 00:07:10

seesaw to me, because sometimes you're all the

Kym Insana: 00:07:13

way up and then sometimes you're all the way down. You're just

Kym Insana: 00:07:16

trying, trying not to fall off.

Janice Porter: 00:07:18

And so balance for sure, in that respect, yeah,

Janice Porter: 00:07:22

you

Kym Insana: 00:07:22

know, you're never balanced, trying to balance it,

Kym Insana: 00:07:25

but we're never completely balanced. I don't, I've never

Kym Insana: 00:07:28

had, you know, maybe have good days or or other days, but there

Kym Insana: 00:07:33

always is something that we're doing last minute or where we're

Kym Insana: 00:07:37

struggling and, you know, wrenches get thrown into

Kym Insana: 00:07:41

anything. I got chosen for jury duty two weeks ago. And like,

Kym Insana: 00:07:46

selected and everybody, like, how did you get selected? Nobody

Kym Insana: 00:07:50

ever get and I tried. I have, you know, have this business,

Kym Insana: 00:07:53

and I have all these kids, right? How do I arrange for

Kym Insana: 00:07:56

pickups and all this? And luckily, ended up ending really

Kym Insana: 00:08:00

quickly, but it was you can't control those things, and that's

Kym Insana: 00:08:05

where I you know, I think you just try to balance it as best

Kym Insana: 00:08:08

as you can. But sometimes other people have to help pick up

Kym Insana: 00:08:12

pieces and support you, and you have to lean on them and have a

Kym Insana: 00:08:16

really good team and be okay with taking support from people.

Kym Insana: 00:08:21

You know, sometimes you may be in a situation where you're

Kym Insana: 00:08:24

taking a lot from somebody at a given time, but how can you

Kym Insana: 00:08:27

repay that back, whether it be to that parent or a person that

Kym Insana: 00:08:32

or someone else, right? And I had so much of that throughout

Kym Insana: 00:08:37

my life, and I'm always trying to offer it up wherever I can

Kym Insana: 00:08:41

like. If someone needs a ride, I offer it I'm going to that

Kym Insana: 00:08:44

school I am so happy to take your kid to and drop off,

Kym Insana: 00:08:47

because you shouldn't have to worry about it if I'm there,

Kym Insana: 00:08:50

because I there's going to be days where I need something,

Kym Insana: 00:08:53

right? You know, it's not that I'm going into it thinking I'm

Kym Insana: 00:08:56

going to get something out of this, but, oh, I understand,

Kym Insana: 00:08:58

yeah, so many people have helped me along the way that I just

Kym Insana: 00:09:01

want to do something for somebody else

Janice Porter: 00:09:03

too. So when you started your company and and

Janice Porter: 00:09:07

consciously were hiring women who needed what you needed, how

Janice Porter: 00:09:14

did that come about? Where did did they find you? Or did you

Janice Porter: 00:09:17

find them? Or,

Kym Insana: 00:09:19

yeah, I I'm I find them. So what happened that I

Kym Insana: 00:09:25

started to see at the same time that I was struggling? What

Kym Insana: 00:09:28

happened with a lot of people in the in the workplace that were

Kym Insana: 00:09:33

in positions where they started to have their first or second

Kym Insana: 00:09:35

child? They ended up leaving, they left the workforce. And I

Kym Insana: 00:09:41

would say, you know, they were, you know, they were so great.

Kym Insana: 00:09:43

They were so great at what they did. Where did they go? Oh, they

Kym Insana: 00:09:46

just stopped working because this wasn't great for them. They

Kym Insana: 00:09:49

couldn't be there for their kid, and they just wanted to be home

Kym Insana: 00:09:52

with the baby or whatever. And I was like, that's silly. Why

Kym Insana: 00:09:55

can't they just work from home? We're in the internet. We have

Kym Insana: 00:09:57

laptops, we have cell phones. You. You know, if they want to

Kym Insana: 00:10:01

work, shouldn't there be some part time options? And it really

Kym Insana: 00:10:04

wasn't a choice, and it was so disappointing, because I don't

Kym Insana: 00:10:09

have daughters, but you think that you you raise your

Kym Insana: 00:10:12

daughter, you go to college, and if it's your choice to stay

Kym Insana: 00:10:15

home, I absolutely respect it, but it shouldn't be that you

Kym Insana: 00:10:18

have you want to work and you can't work because you feel like

Kym Insana: 00:10:22

now you're being torn and and you know you're losing your you

Kym Insana: 00:10:27

know people feel like they're losing their selves, like they

Kym Insana: 00:10:29

want your career and they but they feel like it's they're

Kym Insana: 00:10:33

making a choice, a really hard choice, and they don't feel like

Kym Insana: 00:10:35

the right choice is their career, because then they feel

Kym Insana: 00:10:38

like they're letting their families down. But

Janice Porter: 00:10:39

yet they're not happy, because Exactly, they

Janice Porter: 00:10:43

just

Kym Insana: 00:10:43

want a little bit of everything. And so I started to

Kym Insana: 00:10:46

see it happened, like three, four women started leaving, and

Kym Insana: 00:10:49

I was like, This is so strange. So I had reached out, and I had

Kym Insana: 00:10:53

pretty decent relationships with them. So I reached out when I

Kym Insana: 00:10:56

was thinking about starting it. And Kat, who has been with us

Kym Insana: 00:11:00

since day one. She started. The first day I started, cat

Kym Insana: 00:11:05

started, and she's amazing, and she has four boys too, funny

Kym Insana: 00:11:09

enough, and, oh, wow, she had her last son at the same time

Kym Insana: 00:11:14

that I did. He's a little bit younger than Christian, so, like

Kym Insana: 00:11:19

we both went through having babies, building a business and

Kym Insana: 00:11:23

doing this, and then other people saw us do this, and

Kym Insana: 00:11:26

thought like, Oh, if you have any opportunities, you know, let

Kym Insana: 00:11:30

us know. We started to reach back out to people that we did

Kym Insana: 00:11:34

see, that had left before. And then, even just recently, we or

Kym Insana: 00:11:38

last year, we hired an account manager that my husband worked

Kym Insana: 00:11:42

with who did the same thing. She was just looking for a job. Her

Kym Insana: 00:11:44

kids are going back into school now, and she's looking for

Kym Insana: 00:11:47

something part time, or someone who has a one year old looking

Kym Insana: 00:11:50

for something part time. And so that's how we've started to, you

Kym Insana: 00:11:53

know, build and find the right talent. But a lot of them, we do

Kym Insana: 00:11:58

know, and they're from our network, and we know there's

Kym Insana: 00:12:00

that trust, and there's that relationship, I was just

Janice Porter: 00:12:03

going to say, that's so important, right?

Janice Porter: 00:12:06

Especially when you have people who are working on their own

Janice Porter: 00:12:09

time at home, but they get the job done, because that's all

Janice Porter: 00:12:14

you're asking, is that they get the job done in a reasonable

Janice Porter: 00:12:18

amount of time, right? In that allotted Absolutely.

Kym Insana: 00:12:20

Yeah, and I was gonna say and provide a backup

Kym Insana: 00:12:25

for them, whereas they feel that they need to be doing something

Kym Insana: 00:12:29

with their family, someone is there to help relieve them and

Kym Insana: 00:12:32

help them at the office, or at the virtual office, to give back

Kym Insana: 00:12:37

up to them and let them feel that there is a team there a

Kym Insana: 00:12:40

little bit different than your typical role in a corporate

Janice Porter: 00:12:43

that's special. That's very special. Yeah, I

Janice Porter: 00:12:46

like that. Okay, let's talk about the office for a second.

Janice Porter: 00:12:50

Let's talk about your your business, because you're all

Janice Porter: 00:12:55

about digital marketing, right? And you've had some pretty big

Janice Porter: 00:12:59

clients, and I don't know whether you work with all

Janice Porter: 00:13:03

different like from small companies up, I don't know. Do

Janice Porter: 00:13:07

you

Kym Insana: 00:13:08

Yes, we work with brands of all different sizes.

Kym Insana: 00:13:10

Okay, and

Janice Porter: 00:13:13

how do you help clients choose the best digital

Janice Porter: 00:13:16

platform for their products and their audience? What key factor,

Janice Porter: 00:13:20

factors matter most, because sometimes I know people will

Janice Porter: 00:13:25

clients that I get that to train on how to use LinkedIn

Janice Porter: 00:13:29

effectively. They'll say, Oh, I'm on all the different

Janice Porter: 00:13:31

platforms. And I'm like, Oh, do you need to be right? So how do

Janice Porter: 00:13:36

you get them to see that? Or how do you choose with them, for

Janice Porter: 00:13:40

them, whatever.

Kym Insana: 00:13:41

So I think it's important to know who their

Kym Insana: 00:13:44

target audience is. So if you're a B to B client, LinkedIn is a

Kym Insana: 00:13:48

great avenue, but maybe LinkedIn is the premium, and there's

Kym Insana: 00:13:52

other ways to reach your B to B audience that may come at a

Kym Insana: 00:13:56

lower cost, and I'm more talking about, you know, depending on

Kym Insana: 00:13:59

how much budget you have, how far about paid advertising? Paid

Kym Insana: 00:14:03

advertising specific? Yeah. And so, you know, for us, we really

Kym Insana: 00:14:07

want to define who their target is, what has worked. And

Kym Insana: 00:14:12

sometimes someone may have a target audience and think, oh, I

Kym Insana: 00:14:14

want to be on Tiktok, because that's new, and that's where

Kym Insana: 00:14:17

everyone is. But when you dig in, like, what are you trying to

Kym Insana: 00:14:20

sell. And you know, how do these customers buy? Understanding,

Kym Insana: 00:14:25

are you competing with yourself because you're also putting your

Kym Insana: 00:14:28

product on Amazon, and are you not offering free shipping, but

Kym Insana: 00:14:31

you're offering free shipping through Amazon? We have to

Kym Insana: 00:14:35

really figure out what you know they're trying to do, and how

Kym Insana: 00:14:40

they sell, and where those leads come in from, and then that's

Kym Insana: 00:14:43

when we, you know, guide them. Obviously, we can't completely

Kym Insana: 00:14:46

tell them, but we guide them on where we would suggest this to

Kym Insana: 00:14:50

run and budget does come into play, because you don't want to

Kym Insana: 00:14:54

spread yourself too thin, just like anything in life. If you

Kym Insana: 00:14:56

spread yourself too thin, you're not going to really see anything

Kym Insana: 00:14:59

that's to. Fantastically relevant to show results. So you

Kym Insana: 00:15:03

know, maybe it's choosing one or two platforms to start and not

Kym Insana: 00:15:06

being everywhere. If you're a major brand that has major

Kym Insana: 00:15:10

budgets, then you have the ability to kind of spread out

Kym Insana: 00:15:14

across all platforms. But generally speaking, a lot of our

Kym Insana: 00:15:18

advertisers target maybe three platforms, a meta for social

Kym Insana: 00:15:24

media, which is your Facebook and Instagram. Maybe they're on,

Kym Insana: 00:15:29

you know, running display ads and then search. It really just

Kym Insana: 00:15:34

depends on, you know, what the ideal target is for them, and

Kym Insana: 00:15:39

then kind of going from there?

Janice Porter: 00:15:42

Yeah, there's a lot, definitely a lot. Yeah. So

Janice Porter: 00:15:48

what would you say to entrepreneurs, small business

Janice Porter: 00:15:50

owners who feel overwhelmed by all these options?

Kym Insana: 00:15:54

So we always suggest, and I know that sells

Kym Insana: 00:15:57

us out of some deals sometimes, but try to do as much as you can

Kym Insana: 00:16:01

on your own for free, obviously not getting in the way of your

Kym Insana: 00:16:05

business. If you're looking to scale your business, then it

Kym Insana: 00:16:07

does make sense to hire people in certain roles. But if you

Kym Insana: 00:16:11

have the ability and a little bit of the know how to do some

Kym Insana: 00:16:14

of it on your own organically, absolutely do that. So that is

Kym Insana: 00:16:17

consistent posting on social media, consistent posting on,

Kym Insana: 00:16:22

you know, maybe, if it's a blog on your website, or some type of

Kym Insana: 00:16:26

communication that fits the mold of your business, if you are

Kym Insana: 00:16:30

even like a lender or finance or in education, are you posting

Kym Insana: 00:16:35

informative youtubes? You know, you can be selling tools, and

Kym Insana: 00:16:39

you're showing how to use these tools on YouTube, different

Kym Insana: 00:16:41

things like that that may have a low production cost that you can

Kym Insana: 00:16:45

have as organic traffic. You're only going to reach so many

Kym Insana: 00:16:49

people organically, and obviously factors like SEO come

Kym Insana: 00:16:52

into play, but being able to, you know, kind of squeeze as

Kym Insana: 00:16:55

much as you can out of your organic reach first before you

Kym Insana: 00:16:59

start to go into paid because that once you maximize that,

Kym Insana: 00:17:03

then you can kind of work those both together. Okay,

Janice Porter: 00:17:07

so even when you're doing the organic reach,

Janice Porter: 00:17:11

what I notice, and I'm wondering if you do, and what you would

Janice Porter: 00:17:14

say to these people is that they don't, they're, they're Helter

Janice Porter: 00:17:18

Skelter. They don't have kind of a even if they're doing it

Janice Porter: 00:17:21

themselves, and they're doing they're posting consistently,

Janice Porter: 00:17:25

but there's no rhythm to what they're doing, like, it's like

Janice Porter: 00:17:29

throwing mud at the wall.

Kym Insana: 00:17:31

Yeah, you it sometimes things take a little

Kym Insana: 00:17:34

while to to hit. So maybe you want to try tips every Tuesday,

Kym Insana: 00:17:40

and you can't do it for two weeks and then say it didn't

Kym Insana: 00:17:42

work, right, to keep generating. And sometimes things go viral,

Kym Insana: 00:17:47

and there's no rhyme or reason why it went viral. We just

Kym Insana: 00:17:50

happened to be on topic, and something else that went viral,

Kym Insana: 00:17:53

and you know, you got picked up, but you have to stay consistent

Kym Insana: 00:17:59

and your message to match your brand. So if you are, you know,

Kym Insana: 00:18:07

I always love to use Wendy's as an example, because I think

Kym Insana: 00:18:10

their socials are so cheeky, and they're really out there. And

Kym Insana: 00:18:14

they, they, you know, bite back at different companies on the

Kym Insana: 00:18:17

internet and everything, and it's playful and it's fun, but

Kym Insana: 00:18:19

they're selling hamburgers, and they're selling, you know, a fun

Kym Insana: 00:18:23

environment. Their logo is a girl with pigtails, like it fits

Kym Insana: 00:18:27

their brand. If you are trying to sell computers on a, you

Kym Insana: 00:18:33

know, to in a B to B basis to for Office flyers or something

Kym Insana: 00:18:36

like that, that may not land as well. So just trying different

Kym Insana: 00:18:41

things and putting jokes out there. May not, you know, make

Kym Insana: 00:18:44

the mark for you. So it's really, you know, definitely not

Kym Insana: 00:18:47

just throw mud on the wall, but make sure your brand voice comes

Kym Insana: 00:18:51

through. Because also, this is how you're showing who you are

Kym Insana: 00:18:55

with your your socials. So when somebody comes and works with

Kym Insana: 00:18:58

you, are you that same brand? Is this what they're going to get

Kym Insana: 00:19:02

and the same feeling,

Janice Porter: 00:19:05

right? So be true to yourself, be true to your

Janice Porter: 00:19:08

brand. And I know for me, it's about relationship building, and

Janice Porter: 00:19:13

so it's the same thing as what you're saying, build the

Janice Porter: 00:19:16

relationship honestly and and with your audience and with your

Janice Porter: 00:19:22

with your potential customers, right? Okay, here's a question

Janice Porter: 00:19:29

for you. I know, in your list of amazing clients you've worked

Janice Porter: 00:19:33

with, with major brands like the Texas Rangers, interesting and

Janice Porter: 00:19:38

then completely different, good American. All right, so those

Janice Porter: 00:19:41

are like two different brands completely. How do you nurture,

Janice Porter: 00:19:45

though those client relationships?

Kym Insana: 00:19:48

So we do get a good amount of business from

Kym Insana: 00:19:51

agencies. We work with agencies that are mid tier market, and

Kym Insana: 00:19:57

that's where I would say a lot of our relationships.

Kym Insana: 00:19:59

Relationships are certainly fostered, because we've had

Kym Insana: 00:20:03

relationships within the past. They've come through referrals,

Kym Insana: 00:20:06

and then over time, we build upon that. We build trust. We're

Kym Insana: 00:20:11

here to, you know, help them do things more efficiently, support

Kym Insana: 00:20:15

their team. Let them essentially save cost. Where that they can

Kym Insana: 00:20:21

bring. So you're

Janice Porter: 00:20:21

subcontracted. Then in situations, in some

Kym Insana: 00:20:25

situations, we're subcontracted. In some

Kym Insana: 00:20:28

situations, we partner with the agency and the client at the

Kym Insana: 00:20:31

same time, and then we have a whole book of direct clients, so

Kym Insana: 00:20:35

real mix, but we try to partner and bridge the gap, and maybe,

Kym Insana: 00:20:41

you know, with certain size agencies, they may not be able

Kym Insana: 00:20:44

to hire talent that can, you know, run campaigns on all

Kym Insana: 00:20:48

platforms. So we really just come in to do the execution, so

Kym Insana: 00:20:51

they'll do the strategy, and we partner to do execution, hand in

Kym Insana: 00:20:54

hand, and then they're not worrying about all the hiring

Kym Insana: 00:20:58

and all the costs that come with, you know, building a full

Kym Insana: 00:21:01

media team for execution, and then, you know, scaling up air

Kym Insana: 00:21:05

and down. Sometimes you lose clients, sometimes you win new

Kym Insana: 00:21:08

clients. And you need to be able to scale up or down quickly and

Kym Insana: 00:21:12

not put people in a position where they're, they're laid off,

Kym Insana: 00:21:15

or anything like that. So that's helped us in these partnerships

Kym Insana: 00:21:19

and having these relationships. And most of our clients, we have

Kym Insana: 00:21:22

about a 90% retention rate. So we do believe in relationships

Kym Insana: 00:21:26

and fostering and honestly transparency is the biggest

Kym Insana: 00:21:31

thing, because they know what's going on. We give insight with a

Kym Insana: 00:21:35

reporting dashboard they can go in. There's never any question

Kym Insana: 00:21:38

of something, did something run, or how much did it cost? It's

Kym Insana: 00:21:41

all there for them.

Janice Porter: 00:21:43

So it reminds me of when I am looking for guests

Janice Porter: 00:21:49

for my podcast. I don't have to look very far anymore, because

Janice Porter: 00:21:52

there are people every day that send me emails and say, Hey, I'm

Janice Porter: 00:21:56

going to pitch this person to you for podcast, and some of

Janice Porter: 00:21:59

them are just atrocious and don't even pay attention to what

Janice Porter: 00:22:03

I'm all about. They pretend they do with the statements. But then

Janice Porter: 00:22:06

there's a handful of people I'm going to say on one hand, I can

Janice Porter: 00:22:11

count the number of people that are are either an agency

Janice Porter: 00:22:15

themselves, or they work for an agency that I have built

Janice Porter: 00:22:18

relationship with, that send me good people, and that get to

Janice Porter: 00:22:23

know me, and I get to know I want them to get to know me, so

Janice Porter: 00:22:26

they send me the right people, and somebody sent you to me, and

Janice Porter: 00:22:31

you were the right person. As soon as I know I've had a good

Janice Porter: 00:22:34

conversation with somebody, and that we can have a, you know, a

Janice Porter: 00:22:38

decent conversation, and share some information with for my

Janice Porter: 00:22:43

audience around some topic that works, right? So I want to

Janice Porter: 00:22:47

nurture those relationships with those agencies and those podcast

Janice Porter: 00:22:52

companies that send me people because they're the ones that

Janice Porter: 00:22:55

are working and and make sense. It's all about relationships for

Janice Porter: 00:22:59

me and so yeah, and I love that sometimes those relationships go

Janice Porter: 00:23:04

further now with the people that I'm having those conversations

Janice Porter: 00:23:08

with, because we spend some time together, we get to know each

Janice Porter: 00:23:11

other a little bit and and I appreciate that. So that's

Janice Porter: 00:23:15

really good. So just a couple of quick sideline questions before

Janice Porter: 00:23:20

we wrap up, because you're on, you're in the digital world

Janice Porter: 00:23:27

every day, and you're dealing with what's online. How do you

Janice Porter: 00:23:33

gather your information these days? Do you read real books

Janice Porter: 00:23:38

still? Do you read online? Do you listen to books? Do you

Janice Porter: 00:23:41

watch videos? What do you do for your information? Gathering and

Janice Porter: 00:23:46

pleasure. Yeah,

Kym Insana: 00:23:47

and pleasure. I am a big proponent of reading. It's

Kym Insana: 00:23:51

probably like a broken record in my house that I'm always saying,

Kym Insana: 00:23:54

grab a book or read I I'm more of a Kindle reader. And

Kym Insana: 00:23:59

basically the reason is because when I'm doing bedtime with the

Kym Insana: 00:24:02

kids, I don't have to turn a light on to read the book I had

Kym Insana: 00:24:04

the Kindle, and it lights up. That's the reason they

Janice Porter: 00:24:07

get their reading that way as well. So they'll

Janice Porter: 00:24:10

read on

Kym Insana: 00:24:11

traditional books and I, or I'll read to them, but

Kym Insana: 00:24:15

they'll they always know that I have my Kindle, it's a joke,

Kym Insana: 00:24:17

whereas mom's Kindle, like, it's always around to for me to grab

Kym Insana: 00:24:20

and read a couple pages. Yeah, and I think it's just important

Kym Insana: 00:24:24

for our minds. And I switched back and forth between work

Kym Insana: 00:24:28

related books, maybe management strategy books or business

Kym Insana: 00:24:31

scaling, because I didn't go to business school, so I always try

Kym Insana: 00:24:34

to read a little bit about business. And then I read a lot

Kym Insana: 00:24:36

of nonsense books that are just books to that are light, because

Kym Insana: 00:24:41

I think we need to have some of that. And I don't watch a lot of

Kym Insana: 00:24:44

television that's not sports. Given the household demographic

Kym Insana: 00:24:49

I want to spend time with my kids and they don't want to

Kym Insana: 00:24:52

watch all the things I want to watch. So we watch a lot of

Kym Insana: 00:24:55

sports together, or any show that has a competition to it

Kym Insana: 00:24:58

will usually

Janice Porter: 00:24:58

a lot of competitive side. Ones, yeah,

Janice Porter: 00:25:01

yes. So,

Kym Insana: 00:25:01

like, they'll watch, there's a show extracted or

Kym Insana: 00:25:05

something, I don't know, it's like, survivor, and somebody

Kym Insana: 00:25:08

gets voted off. Like, that's okay, because there's a voting,

Kym Insana: 00:25:10

it's a winner. Yeah, yeah. Those are the things we watch. But

Kym Insana: 00:25:14

really, I try to read the trades where I can, you know, I spent a

Kym Insana: 00:25:20

lot of time on LinkedIn and just seeing, you know news and what

Kym Insana: 00:25:24

things are popping and I and right now there's a lot of

Kym Insana: 00:25:28

consolidation happening, and some big agents and things like

Kym Insana: 00:25:31

that that are that are scary for people, and so always trying to

Kym Insana: 00:25:35

to stay on top of things that way. But it is harder being on

Kym Insana: 00:25:39

your own, as you can appreciate when you're in a big

Kym Insana: 00:25:42

corporation, there is somebody that that's their job to provide

Kym Insana: 00:25:45

information to you, and then as you go on your own, you realize

Kym Insana: 00:25:49

you don't have that. So going back to relationships, I talk to

Kym Insana: 00:25:53

people all the time in the industry that are former

Kym Insana: 00:25:56

colleagues or anything, just to catch up and connect and then be

Kym Insana: 00:26:01

able to, you know, share information. I share what I see,

Kym Insana: 00:26:04

what's happening in my business. And then, you know, obviously

Kym Insana: 00:26:08

take information from them as well, because that that is

Kym Insana: 00:26:11

critical for our growth, and we have to keep learning. I will

Kym Insana: 00:26:15

never know everything about what I'm doing, and we can always

Kym Insana: 00:26:19

learn something new every single day. So it's important to have

Kym Insana: 00:26:23

conversations with people all the time.

Janice Porter: 00:26:25

It's so true. Now I'm so curious. I have to ask

Janice Porter: 00:26:29

you this based on what you just said. So you have four boys.

Janice Porter: 00:26:32

Your little one's going to be eight, as we're talking

Janice Porter: 00:26:35

tomorrow, he's going to be but you're older. Your three older

Janice Porter: 00:26:39

boys. I know they're all boys. Are they all competitive?

Kym Insana: 00:26:43

Yes, so oldest is competitive in business. So he

Kym Insana: 00:26:49

is in just complete his first year of college, but he competed

Kym Insana: 00:26:53

with deca, which is a business organization through high

Kym Insana: 00:26:57

schools, and so you they have like a stock market game and one

Kym Insana: 00:27:02

in the country. I didn't even know he knew how to short sell

Kym Insana: 00:27:04

socks. I didn't know what that was. I still don't know what it

Kym Insana: 00:27:07

is, yeah, and so he's extremely competitive in that sense. Like,

Kym Insana: 00:27:11

that's his thing.

Janice Porter: 00:27:12

Yeah, he's going to be a hedge fund. Man.

Kym Insana: 00:27:17

God is reading during the day. I'm like, Are

Kym Insana: 00:27:19

you sure you're losing 1000s of dollars or the FBI is not going

Kym Insana: 00:27:22

to show up, like one of those two things I'm scared of, but

Kym Insana: 00:27:25

the other two are in travel baseball, and that is extremely

Kym Insana: 00:27:31

competitive and draining financially and mentally.

Janice Porter: 00:27:36

I'm asking you for a reason, because I think in

Janice Porter: 00:27:39

today's world, it's amazing and fascinating, because so much of

Janice Porter: 00:27:43

school, so much when I was teaching, which was a long time

Janice Porter: 00:27:47

ago, but they don't want the kids to be competitive.

Janice Porter: 00:27:50

Everybody gets a ribbon, you know, that kind of thing. So I

Janice Porter: 00:27:53

think that's innate. I think that they've learned that from

Janice Porter: 00:27:56

their parents. I think that they've been around a

Janice Porter: 00:27:58

competitive family. Am I right?

Kym Insana: 00:28:04

Yes. And I, um, there's a joke in our house,

Kym Insana: 00:28:06

because I love playing board games. Yeah, and I don't let

Kym Insana: 00:28:10

them win. I let them win the first time. I will teach you how

Kym Insana: 00:28:12

to play the game, and I will let you win then. But you know that

Kym Insana: 00:28:16

if you beat me, you earned that, yeah, out of it, because you got

Kym Insana: 00:28:20

to beat me, but I don't know. I don't let them. I'm maybe a

Kym Insana: 00:28:23

little easier on the willow garden sometimes, but really,

Kym Insana: 00:28:26

because I'll beat him in trouble and run around the house

Kym Insana: 00:28:28

cheering, and he's, you know, he's all in good

Janice Porter: 00:28:31

fun. Oh yeah, my five year old granddaughter

Janice Porter: 00:28:33

beats me at UNO, but sometimes she cheats, so you have to, oh

Janice Porter: 00:28:37

yeah, yeah. I know it's so funny, but I was just, I had to

Janice Porter: 00:28:44

ask you that, because I love the competition piece, and I tend to

Janice Porter: 00:28:48

sometimes be too competitive as well, but, but I think it's a

Janice Porter: 00:28:52

good thing. I think it's, it's healthy. And by the way, I had a

Janice Porter: 00:28:56

you tell your son this the hedge fund, the future hedge fund guy,

Janice Porter: 00:29:00

I I had a son in law, and he's an ex son in law now, but he's a

Janice Porter: 00:29:05

hedge fund guy, and he used to tell me that if people in the

Janice Porter: 00:29:09

supermarket line were talking about a stock or talking about,

Janice Porter: 00:29:13

you know, what's going on, it's too late. Yes, right? So, yeah,

Kym Insana: 00:29:18

so it's true. He said our friends were over one

Kym Insana: 00:29:22

night, and they were the the dad was talking about how he where

Kym Insana: 00:29:26

he gets his news for his stocks and stuff like that. My son, you

Kym Insana: 00:29:29

have to, he pulls me aside. He said, I don't want to tell him,

Kym Insana: 00:29:32

but he shouldn't really be listening to that, because it's

Kym Insana: 00:29:35

too late and it's manipulated. It's what they want you to buy.

Kym Insana: 00:29:39

So it is, you know, it's funny. That's amazing. And I said, No,

Kym Insana: 00:29:44

you should tell him, because then he could be losing money,

Kym Insana: 00:29:47

and he's thinking you're just sitting there, shaking your

Kym Insana: 00:29:49

head, yes. So

Janice Porter: 00:29:51

love it. Love it. Well, that's fun. Thanks for

Janice Porter: 00:29:53

sharing that and indulging me in in a little bit of that

Janice Porter: 00:29:56

conversation. This has been delightful. I appreciate. See

Janice Porter: 00:30:00

your time, and I would just like to ask you one last question,

Janice Porter: 00:30:03

what your advice would be to entrepreneurs who want to build

Janice Porter: 00:30:08

a company and grow it and that reflects their values based on

Janice Porter: 00:30:12

what you do. So

Kym Insana: 00:30:14

I think it's really important to do things your way

Kym Insana: 00:30:18

and be true to yourself, because if you look at the textbook for

Kym Insana: 00:30:22

a lot of things, sometimes that doesn't work for what your path

Kym Insana: 00:30:26

is. If I looked at the textbook for, you know, running and

Kym Insana: 00:30:29

scaling an organization, it probably would say I should take

Kym Insana: 00:30:33

in, you know, VC money or something, and we didn't want to

Kym Insana: 00:30:36

do that for a lot of reasons, and that, you know, maybe made

Kym Insana: 00:30:40

our growth go a certain direction that would not have

Kym Insana: 00:30:43

been right for someone else, or not been successful from a

Kym Insana: 00:30:47

textbook standpoint. So I think it's important to do what's true

Kym Insana: 00:30:50

to yourself. And sometimes things are going to you're going

Kym Insana: 00:30:54

to be uncomfortable, for sure, but you should never feel like

Kym Insana: 00:30:57

this is not right, or, you know, to the point where it it's

Kym Insana: 00:31:02

painful, and so that would be my advice, you know, and

Kym Insana: 00:31:06

definitely, definitely, know your finances. I wish I had an

Kym Insana: 00:31:11

accounting degree, because I think that would have been

Kym Insana: 00:31:14

invaluable as well, which is why my son also kind of went into

Kym Insana: 00:31:18

the finance direction, because I hammered home accounting so much

Kym Insana: 00:31:21

that he's going to probably get, you know, try to get a CPA as a

Kym Insana: 00:31:25

backup. Yeah? Because I said, you know, you have to know your

Kym Insana: 00:31:29

finances. That's critical. Because that could be a big

Kym Insana: 00:31:32

mistake someone makes on your behalf. Yeah,

Janice Porter: 00:31:34

for sure, that's great advice. Thank you. Well,

Janice Porter: 00:31:38

Kim's story is proof that business doesn't have to come at

Janice Porter: 00:31:42

the expense of family or personal values by focusing on

Janice Porter: 00:31:45

trust, flexibility and relationships, she's not only

Janice Porter: 00:31:48

scaled a company, but created a blueprint for women to thrive in

Janice Porter: 00:31:52

both business and life. If you've ever felt torn between

Janice Porter: 00:31:56

professional ambition and personal fulfillment, Kim's

Janice Porter: 00:31:59

journey shows us it's possible to have both, and that sometimes

Janice Porter: 00:32:02

rewriting the rules leads to even greater success. How can

Janice Porter: 00:32:06

people find you? Kim and I write no notes. Of

Kym Insana: 00:32:10

course. I'm on LinkedIn. Kim and Santa. It's k,

Kym Insana: 00:32:14

y, M, right. I N, S, A, N, A. You can reach us through our

Kym Insana: 00:32:18

website, which is getaways on.com I get a lot of those

Kym Insana: 00:32:21

requests, or I'm Kim Kym at get always on.com

Janice Porter: 00:32:26

Perfect. Thank you again for being here, and

Janice Porter: 00:32:28

thank you to my audience for being here. If you like what you

Janice Porter: 00:32:31

heard, please let us know and reach out and check out Kim's

Janice Porter: 00:32:36

digital footprint. Shall we say? Thank you so much, and remember

Janice Porter: 00:32:43

to stay connected and be remembered.

Kym Insana: 00:32:46

Thank you. Bye.