Gold Nuggets
- Time is going faster for Juliet. Is it because she’s been stuck in the house with Steve for a year during lockdown?
- “No matter how much we know, we still fail sometimes.”
- “There is no such thing as a failure. There are victories and there are learnings. Sometimes what become victories later resulted from our greatest learnings.”
- “The only people who never fail are those that never do anything at all.”
- “Always show that thing that differentiates you from other companies, and in most cases other than your product, it’s usually you.”
- “You have something to tell people. You’re telling your story, your brand’s story, or your company’s story, and people get attached to that and they like to follow your journey.”
- “Pinterest is not social media. It is a visual search engine. It’s the third largest search engine after Google and YouTube.”
- “The number one mistake is not collecting people’s emails.”
- “Email marketing is the number one thing that companies can do that brings a lot of conversion.“
- “Whether you’re on social media, writing blog posts, email marketing, or anything that you’re doing, you always have to tell a story.”
- “Don’t be afraid. If you want to do this so badly, go for it. You will fail. Learn from those mistakes. Stand up again. Go, pivot, create something.”
- “Don’t worry about finding customers for your products. Find products for your customers.” – Seth Godin
Meet Sandy Dedeian
Our guest is Founder and CEO of Rectified, Inc., Sandy Dedeian.
Sandy has been an entrepreneur and marketer since 2004, and has followed an atypical career path. She has a unique mix of academic knowledge, traditional work experience, and crazy entrepreneurship. In 2007, she founded Rectified Inc. to help small and medium companies improve and perfect their marketing, and has since worked with SMEs in the Middle East, the UK, the US, and Canada.
Sandy holds a Bachelors of Business Administration from the American University of Beirut, a Masters in Management from the Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth, and an MBA from HEC Montréal.
Smart Man, Smarter Woman References
We talk about a lot in each episode; however, we don’t want you to miss a thing! Here are some key items were mentioned if you want to take a closer look.
Website Recommendations:
rectified.co
Book Recommendation:
Superfans: The Easy Way to Stand Out, Grow Your Tribe by Pat Flynn
Stay Connected:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/rectifiedco
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandydedeian/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sandydedeian/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rectified.co/
Learn more about our Cloud Accounting Services here
Transcript
Steve Lotes (00:00):
Welcome everyone to another episode of our podcast, Smart Man, Smarter Woman, a podcast for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. And thank you very much for joining us today. I am Steve Lotes.
Juliet Aurora (00:15):
And I am Juliet Aurora.
Steve Lotes (00:16):
And we are your co-hosts. And before we introduce today’s guest, I will introduce officially my wonderful co-host that’s smarter woman herself, Juliet. How are you doing today, Juliet?
Juliet Aurora (00:30):
I am excellent. Thank you, Steve. The month just seems to be flying by. I know that by the time this episode actually gets aired, it’s probably the end of another month as well, but just the time seems to be picking up momentum. I don’t know if that’s because I’m getting older or if it’s just being in lockdown, but time certainly seems to be accelerating. But otherwise, I’m excellent, just not enough hours in the day.
Steve Lotes (00:56):
Awesome. Well, I’m very glad to hear that, and I’m sure you meant to say but probably just you forgot that you’re also feeling fantastic in locked down because you get to spend more time with me. And we know that would be a reason why you would feel fantastic.
Juliet Aurora (01:16):
Is that why it feels like the time is going faster as opposed to slower? I don’t know. I’m not even going to touch that one. We’ve been in locked down together for a year. I love you. The house is getting a little smaller as the year goes by, but no. Absolutely, I’m very thankful that I’m in lockdown with you.
Steve Lotes (01:37):
Okay. You might go in a little bit too far now, but okay, we’ll go with that. But thank you very much. But let’s bring in today’s guest. And welcome, Sandy Dedeian from Montreal. How are you doing today, Sandy?
Sandy Dedeian (01:56):
Hi Steve. Hi Juliette. I’m so happy to be here on your podcast today. It’s a sunny day, the sky is blue, which is very nice here in Montreal. So I’m really happy, in a good mood, and I’m your guest, so that makes me even happier.
Steve Lotes (02:14):
Wow. Wow. Well, thank you very much for that. We got a lot to live up to now, Juliet.
Juliet Aurora (02:20):
Well, yeah, you do.
Steve Lotes (02:23):
I knew that would come back to me. Well, why don’t we start off the show as we usually do, Sandy. If you wouldn’t mind telling us a little bit about yourself, about your own entrepreneurial journey, and what you do and how you help people. And let’s see where we go with that.
Sandy Dedeian (02:39):
Let’s say that I was born an entrepreneur. Well, basically there’s something in our family that’s very entrepreneurial. So my father owned his own business and his brother too, they worked together. Ever since I was a kid, a child, I used to go to my dad’s office and then pretend to be working there. So it all started from there.
Sandy Dedeian (03:03):
And then today, I have, let’s say, officially around 17 years of work experience and I’ve never been an employee, all those years were me doing my own thing. So now I’m in marketing consultant. I’m a Pinterest strategist. I own my own marketing consultancy firm, which is called Rectified. We work with small and medium businesses. We offer them different marketing related services such as marketing strategy, social media strategy, management, email marketing, Pinterest marketing, and recently we added websites and brandings to the list of our services.
Sandy Dedeian (03:47):
It’s slowly and gradually expanding. We do show our clients a 360 degree view of all their marketing needs. This goes in our consulting package. And then whatever we can help them implement, we help them. Or we work with other business partners who may help them. For example, in the case of SEO, we don’t do SEO, but I do recommend other people who can help them with SEO.
Sandy Dedeian (04:15):
But we just like to give them a screenshot of everything they need or everything that they’re not doing in their small businesses. The main idea is that small business owners, startup owners, entrepreneurs, they have a product or a service that they want to offer, but they don’t know much, maybe they don’t come from a business background, maybe they’re engineers, or they’re like coders, they’re creating a certain app, so they don’t know much about this. And this is where we come to help them and assist them in marketing their business to the public.
Steve Lotes (04:55):
Awesome.
Juliet Aurora (04:57):
It’s interesting that most of the guests that we’ve had, and all of our guests have been entrepreneurs in some stage or another. And it’s interesting that I… And correct me if I’m wrong, Steve, but I think that you are our first entrepreneur who never worked for someone else and has always been an entrepreneur. I don’t believe that that’s typical. Usually-
Steve Lotes (05:21):
Yeah. Off the top of my head, I don’t recall anyone else with that similar background. It’s usually they work for someone else and then discovered either they were not a very good employee or just had this entrepreneurial spirit that they wanted to start their own thing. I guess we do have to ask the question. Why did you never even try to work for someone else or?
Sandy Dedeian (05:48):
Well, I worked for my father, if that counts. But still it was more entrepreneurial than a structured system. So ever since, I don’t know… I think I’m the only one, we’re three children in our family, me, I have two other sisters. So the two of them are not like me, but I’m the only one who did exactly what my father did. Maybe it runs in the family. I also have cousins who are similar. There’s always something within us that tells us, “You need to do something more. You need to grow. You need to…” I don’t know. I cannot just be in one box, and that’s very important.
Sandy Dedeian (06:28):
Just like I said, I like to have an overall view of everything and try to do a bit of everything. This is who I am. And I always have ideas that are boiling in my brain and I need to do more and more and more. And to be completely honest and transparent, having a father who is an entrepreneur has helped me a lot in my journey.
Sandy Dedeian (06:52):
He didn’t say, “No, go be an employee in a bank.” Not that banks are bad, but it’s more like the traditional route. The only thing that he and my mom also pushed me to do is to study. It’s not just to go on an entrepreneurial journey on a whim, but I did go to university. I did my BA. I did a master’s degree. And then even recently in 2016, I did an MBA. And I always work on myself with certificates, with a lot of new things.
Sandy Dedeian (07:25):
For me, this helps me a lot in learning more, working on myself, becoming a better entrepreneur, a better business owner, and not just going with my idea and doing anything. So I’m more of a structured entrepreneur than those who have an idea and they just want to do it.
Steve Lotes (07:45):
Okay.
Juliet Aurora (07:46):
I wonder how much of that is because if your father was an entrepreneur and you grew up in that environment, you knew what you needed to learn. And what a lot of entrepreneurs don’t know is they don’t know where to start. And so then they go in and start their business. Where you would have seen, well, here’s what works, here’s what does, and here’s what I need to learn so that I can be successful. So certainly it would have given you an advantage growing up in that environment that you would have been able to see it.
Sandy Dedeian (08:15):
Yes and no. We still do mistakes. So I worked in our family business… Well, I took over at some point. It was more of an entrepreneurial journey. I did new ideas. I created new things in the business. But then let’s say a few years ago I went on another venture because I just needed a fresh start. I moved to Canada.
Sandy Dedeian (08:43):
I was in Lebanon before. I moved to Canada and I’m like, “This is a fresh start. I did my MBA here.” And then I’m like, “I want to follow my passion.” And I’m someone who is crazy fashion. It’s a pure passion of mine. And then I wanted to venture there. But a lot of circumstances happened and I didn’t plan the whole thing, I just focused on my product. And what I preach, I didn’t do.
Sandy Dedeian (09:15):
It was just a crazy year, crazy few years in my life. And I just went on a whim and I did something and I failed, and I’m not afraid of saying that I failed. No matter how much we know, we still fail sometimes, and it’s not wrong, it’s just very important to just get back on our feet and then continue and maybe pivot or do something else.
Steve Lotes (09:40):
Yeah. And we also have a saying that there is no such thing as a failure. There are victories and there are learnings.
Sandy Dedeian (09:50):
Exactly.
Steve Lotes (09:51):
Those are the only two things that exist. And sometimes what become victories later resulted from our greatest learnings.
Sandy Dedeian (10:02):
Exactly.
Steve Lotes (10:02):
Yeah, [inaudible 00:10:04] someone said that, “The only people who never fail are those that never do anything at all.” I wouldn’t worry about that too much. But I do have to ask… I mean, you’ve talked about your dad’s business, you’ve talked about your education, and you talked about your passion for fashion, how did you end up in marketing?
Sandy Dedeian (10:24):
Well, this is what I studied. I’ve done marketing my whole life. Like since day one, even in our family business, this is what I started with. At university, I specialized in marketing. I love it. It’s also another passion of mine. You know when you start university and you don’t know anything, I just started, “Okay, I’m going to do business administration.” And I went. And you’d take all these introductory courses and you don’t know which one to choose because you’re lost. I was 18 at the time. I didn’t know.
Sandy Dedeian (10:56):
And then I took my first marketing course and that was it. I’m like, “This is it. I love it.” And I started taking all those courses. And that’s how it started. And I’ve done this since then. I never stopped.
Juliet Aurora (11:09):
And marketing is probably one of the areas, for most small businesses, that either they do really well or they don’t do at all. Or I guess maybe even they do it poorly, or think that they’re doing it well. Maybe that’s the better.
Juliet Aurora (11:23):
And especially with digital, I think digital has shifted the landscape completely. It used to be that you put an ad in the yellow pages or you get a billboard or you get your business name on the side of a bus or put an ad in the newspaper. There were very traditional roles. It was pretty much that you knew, this is how I market.
Juliet Aurora (11:49):
Digitally, it has changed everything so fundamentally. And we hear all the time, “Well, digital marketing doesn’t work. I spend all this money on things and it doesn’t get me anywhere. And no one ever comes to my website.” And so I think the marketing is certainly a challenge for a lot of businesses. And it can fundamentally affect whether or not you’re successful or not.
Juliet Aurora (12:14):
If we have a business owner in our audience, let’s not do startup, let’s do that they’ve been in business for five years, where would you tell them to start?
Sandy Dedeian (12:24):
It’s very interesting what you just said. When I first started, it was all about magazine ads and yellow pages and billboards, radio, TV. It depends on your budget, of course. And it was very traditional, more straightforward. Nowadays, things… I started shifting the things that I’m doing throughout the years, but nowadays I feel like there’s just too much noise out there and you need to do something that will make you stand out of your competition. Especially since 2020, where everybody went virtual and there are no longer small boutiques. Even small boutiques are doing websites to sell their products because nobody can go there.
Sandy Dedeian (13:13):
A lot of things have changed. Even if you decide, for example, to pay for Google ads, there’s the shopping tab that you click on and then you have all these little products that you can buy. You need to spend a lot of money to even appear if you’re a small business, for example, in front of all these giants that are out there that are spending millions and hundreds of thousands of dollars on their marketing budget.
Sandy Dedeian (13:40):
For me, what I do first is that I tell my clients or any small business owner, is to find what is their X factor. What is the thing that makes you different than the other company? Usually people, for small businesses, they like to buy from other people. So if I’m going to buy scented candle, maybe I can go buy it from this big store who sells scented candles or why would I go buy it from you, you’re a small business owner?
Sandy Dedeian (14:19):
So I need to show that. I need to show, for example, find an angle to appeal to the people, to your audience. Think about who is your ideal audience and how you can talk to them. Speak to them in their own language. Just do small things that are more personal than these big, giant corporations who are selling the same scented candle. But you did it maybe yourself at home, or maybe you did it in a small local factory or something. Always show that thing that differentiates you from the other companies. And in most cases, other than your product, it’s usually you.
Sandy Dedeian (15:00):
Especially for small businesses, it’s always us. We are the ones that are different. People are buying from me and not necessarily buying my candle because my candle is amazing. I don’t know if that makes sense.
Juliet Aurora (15:13):
Absolutely. It absolutely does. So are you saying that for smaller businesses… I mean you could buy a candle on Amazon and get it delivered. If you have Prime and you’re in a local city center, you can get it delivered the same day. Most small businesses can’t compete with that. So you have to be able to compete on something else other than price and convenience.
Juliet Aurora (15:37):
I know that just in our neighborhood alone on any given day, I see an Amazon delivery at least three times a day, just in my crescent, over the last year with COVID and the big shift to online marketing.
Juliet Aurora (15:56):
Would you say that small business owners actually need to become the face of their business? Because some of those small businesses aren’t going to be comfortable with that. Do you need to personalize it so that the people feel like that they’re buying from you? Is that the kind of messaging that you need on your website, as opposed to it just being about the product that you’re selling?
Sandy Dedeian (16:18):
That does work a lot. I recommend that. Not necessarily on the website, but let’s say a small business has an Instagram account. Most small business owners, they don’t show their face, they don’t talk to their audience on stories, they don’t do that. And I find the people who show themselves a little bit, even if you’re like the introvert and you don’t want to do that, nowadays it’s working a lot. It’s making a big difference between you and other people.
Sandy Dedeian (16:49):
It’s like you’re building a relationship with the person who is seeing that. And they’re like, “Oh my God, I so want to try this product.” Or, “I want to buy food from this person.” However, I deal with that on a daily basis with my clients, and there are a lot who don’t show their faces.
Sandy Dedeian (17:10):
In this case, we try to tell a story in some way, like create a persona or some sort of a character. Or even without a character, like just tell a story about something so that people are attached to this. It’s all about storytelling nowadays. You have something to tell people, you’re telling your story or your brand’s story or your company’s story, and people get attached to that and they like to follow your journey. If you don’t want to show your face, give something that will attract them and make them more attached to your brand.
Steve Lotes (17:51):
That’s good advice. I would like to touch on something else as well, because you’re also, I believe, the first guest we have had on the show who actually mentions the word Pinterest and marketing.
Sandy Dedeian (18:07):
Yes.
Steve Lotes (18:09):
I’d like to touch on that because also you talked about differentiation, right? And telling your story and finding your X factor. Pinterest, to a large degree, in today’s world of digital marketing is the forgotten child, right? I mean, it’s Instagram, it’s YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, even Twitter, you hear more than you hear about Pinterest. And yet there’s still a huge following for Pinterest.
Steve Lotes (18:43):
Talk about that a little more, if you would like, why do you feel so passionately about Pinterest? And why do you think it is sort of the poor child or the forgotten child that people just don’t seem to talk about anymore?
Sandy Dedeian (18:59):
Well, thank you for this question because Pinterest I became… I started using Pinterest to drive traffic to my website or for marketing purposes in 2016, 2017.
Sandy Dedeian (19:15):
I did learn a lot since then. I know the mistakes that I made, but I know for a fact that it’s a hidden marketing gem. People don’t know how important this platform is, and it’s still one of the only platforms where you can grow organically and get results.
Sandy Dedeian (19:34):
So basically let me start by saying that Pinterest is not social media. So for all those people who think that Pinterest is social media, it’s not. It is a visual search engine. So it’s the third largest search engine after Google and YouTube. So on YouTube, you look for videos, on Pinterest, you look for images of things. And people go on Pinterest actually looking for something, they’re looking for a solution to their problem or something that satisfies their needs.
Sandy Dedeian (20:09):
So I go on Pinterest, for example, I want to decorate my bedroom. So I start creating all those boards about frames, flowers, sheets, chairs, whatever it is that goes in a bedroom. And then think about it from the business side, what are these people pinning? They’re pinning these businesses’ products because these businesses have put their products out there on the platform. They pinned those images and then other people are creating these boards.
Sandy Dedeian (20:45):
Pinners, in their nature, they click on those pins and they always go to the website. Most of the time, so many people buy from you at the end of the day. So if you look at it from this point of view, it’s really interesting for a company to have an account on Pinterest. And nowadays, it’s growing like crazy.
Sandy Dedeian (21:05):
Pinterest last year went public and they’re creating all those new things for businesses, of course, because they need to make more money, they’re public now. But it’s very interesting for you to go there and then pin all your products, pin your blog posts, and it will drive crazy traffic. After three to four months, you’re going to start seeing crazy traffic to your website.
Sandy Dedeian (21:31):
The more you pin, the more there’s a snowball effect that’s happening. And then there’s always traffic that comes to your website on autopilot. And you don’t even have to do a big effort for that. Eventually people will convert.
Sandy Dedeian (21:45):
I find this pretty amazing because on all social media platforms, it’s very difficult, and your content lives a very short time, while on Pinterest, it lives for a really, really long time. And it’s always there and people are always finding what you posted.
Steve Lotes (22:04):
Is it fair to say that if you sell products, Pinterest is a good place, but if you sell services, maybe not?
Sandy Dedeian (22:18):
No. If you sell a service, it’s also a good place. For example, me, take me as an example, I do sell a service at the end of the day. First of all, service-based companies need to set their conversion goal, what is my conversion? My initial conversion, what I want from Pinterest to do, is not for me to get a new client who will immediately call me and say, “Oh, please come and do my marketing.” This does not happen.
Sandy Dedeian (22:49):
So what we do, for example, is to write blog posts about topics, about Pinterest marketing, about Instagram, about TikTok, about whatever. Whatever topic that we want. And then the ultimate goal is to have people sign up to your newsletter. And there you start with email marketing and you nurture that relationship. And then you’ll talk to these people, you send them things, you maybe send them freebies, maybe you give them some information, you talk about your podcast episode, you talk about this and that. You build relationships with them and eventually some of them converts or maybe… It depends on what the goal is.
Sandy Dedeian (23:33):
The main goal for service-based companies is usually collecting emails. And Pinterest is a really, really good source for collecting emails. In the of product space, you definitely need to have an e-commerce website, or else it doesn’t work. You need people to go from this platform, click on it, and then go find that product and buy it immediately.
Steve Lotes (23:58):
Okay. You touched on email marketing a little bit there. What do you find is one of the biggest mistakes you see entrepreneurs making? Those that are doing email marketing but maybe they’re saying, “This is a waste of time. I’m not getting any results. People get too much email anyway, they don’t want to get more emails for me?” What do you say to those people?
Sandy Dedeian (24:27):
Well, the number one mistake is not collecting people’s emails. We need to understand that our website and our email list are the only things that we own as a business. What’s on Instagram, what’s on Facebook, what’s on TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, these are all platforms and your account something may happen to your Instagram account. Somebody may hack it and all these people will go. Even if you have one million followers, if you don’t have their emails, how will you communicate with them? This is very important. You own these emails, they’re yours.
Sandy Dedeian (25:08):
This is the number one thing that I always tell people. And everybody’s like, “Oh, too many emails.” Just like you said, Steve. But it’s very important to take that into consideration.
Sandy Dedeian (25:20):
The second thing is you always need to… Don’t spam them. Okay? Build a relationship with them. Start by once a week, send them something, give them a freebie, give them a coupon, a promo code, tell them a story. Maybe if I want to put myself out there as an entrepreneur, like maybe Friday I can send them an email and say, “Oh, a Monday I recorded a podcast episode with Steve and Juliet.” Things like that. Tell them about myself, like they feel that they can relate.
Sandy Dedeian (25:54):
Up until this day, email marketing is the number one thing that companies can do and that brings a lot of conversion. But you just need to nurture that relationship and talk to them in their own language.
Juliet Aurora (26:10):
Great advice. I mean, there’s still so many emails. I think it’s gotten better over the last year or two. It used to be every email that I received from a business, they were trying to sell me their product. And I’ve seen that that has changed, so I think that message has gotten out that you can’t sell me in every single email because I’m just going to unsubscribe. So no, I think that’s great advice about telling a story and getting them to connect with you and building a relationship.
Sandy Dedeian (26:37):
Yeah. Everything is about that. Whether you’re on social media, whether you’re writing blog posts, whether your email marketing, or anything that you’re doing, you always have to tell a story, like today on this podcast or other people’s podcasts. People are interested in this. They relate to you, they feel like, “Oh my God, I feel like this brand is so… It means something to me.” And then I go and buy often from there.
Sandy Dedeian (27:05):
You have to relate to something. It’s not just pushing products anymore, consumers have become smarter and you cannot just push something to them. Like in the old days we had those magazine ads where they’d tell you, “This detergent will clean your house in two seconds,” and then you go and buy it and it doesn’t clean. You can’t do that anymore, you have Twitter armies on Twitter, you have people who will tell the truth, you have reviews. You cannot fool people anymore like in the old days. So just be transparent and tell your story and people will follow.
Steve Lotes (27:44):
Yeah. Again, great advice. I don’t think that ever goes out of date, right? No matter what kind of business you have, no matter even how big your business gets, people still want to do business with other people.
Sandy Dedeian (28:01):
Exactly.
Steve Lotes (28:01):
We have all this technology, and we have Zoom, right? We can meet virtually. But what is the one thing everybody talks about that they miss? It’s being in the same room with someone else, right? I mean, we’re people and we need that. And if the last year has taught us anything, it has certainly taught us that that is more true than ever, that regardless of how awesome the technology becomes, we still need human interaction, human conversation, and certainly that’s true about marketing.
Sandy Dedeian (28:40):
Exactly.
Steve Lotes (28:42):
One question I would love to ask you, what do you love about what you do right now?
Sandy Dedeian (28:47):
Everything.
Steve Lotes (28:47):
Because you’re very passionate about it and very, “Yeah, I love doing this.” What do you love about what you do?
Sandy Dedeian (28:55):
I love everything. I love to see the transformation. I love to see how you go from zero to 100,000. I love to see how people start making more money. I love to see changes. It changes everything. And I like to help that. And I like to also show people like, “Yes, you have a great idea, but let me help you because you can make your idea even better with all these little tricks.” It’s small tricks.
Sandy Dedeian (29:29):
Everything I’ve learned in the past 17, almost 18 years, I like to teach people that too. I like to tell them like, “Please do this. Please do that.” Sometimes I just give away free advice. For me, the important thing is to make an impact and to see this change while doing something that I love, because I love creating, I love… For me, it becomes just like a game it’s like a puzzle. I’m enjoying every single day that I’m doing this. So yeah, why not?
Steve Lotes (30:03):
Absolutely.
Juliet Aurora (30:04):
Excellent.
Steve Lotes (30:05):
That brings us to the part of the show that is certainly one of my favorite parts, and that’s where we ask every guest the same six questions and we see where that leads us. So if you are ready, Sandy, I would like to get started.
Sandy Dedeian (30:21):
Yes, let’s do this.
Steve Lotes (30:23):
Perfect. What one word best defines an entrepreneur?
Sandy Dedeian (30:31):
One word? Courage, I say, because it is very difficult path, it is unstable, you don’t know what’s going to happen to you, and if you don’t have the courage to just go for it and do it and then learn from your experiences, your mistakes, and then redo and pivot and redo. You can’t do it if you don’t have courage.
Steve Lotes (31:03):
Okay. Excellent. What profession, other than your own, would you like to attempt?
Sandy Dedeian (31:10):
I don’t think I want to change anything. I really love this. It’s been a very long time since I didn’t wake up every day and… How can I explain this? I wake up every day and I don’t say, “Oh, I need to work.” I wake up and I want to do things. And I wake up and I want to create things. I think this is a good sign. I think I found the right path in my life. That’s the part that’s making me happy.
Steve Lotes (31:40):
Awesome. What profession would you like never to attempt?
Sandy Dedeian (31:47):
I think I said that at the beginning of the podcast. I cannot be put in a box. Even in marketing. But let’s say in a company where they tell me you only do Instagram, or you only do a strategy, or you only do analytics, they just put me in one frame and you have to specialize in this thing, I can’t do that. Even within marketing. Any type of business that puts me in a box, I can’t do it.
Steve Lotes (32:21):
Perfect. What sound or noise do you love?
Sandy Dedeian (32:29):
Sound or noise? I do love the piano. I used to play piano for the longest time until I was about 16, 17. It just calls me and most of the time when I’m creating things, I just put like [Chokan 00:32:47] in the background and I start working. I just love it.
Steve Lotes (32:50):
Awesome. What book would you recommend for entrepreneurs to read?
Sandy Dedeian (32:59):
Well, so many books. What I’m currently reading… Let’s just say I’m going to tell you what I’m currently reading. I’m reading Super Fans by Pat Flynn. It’s very interesting. It’s about all those people who are crazy fans about a singer or a brand or an influencer, the path that you should take to have this amount of people who are crazy about you, and then eventually you can sell them anything you want, even if it’s like $300 candles or something.
Sandy Dedeian (33:39):
But it’s really interesting. It’s a mix of marketing and psychology and how you can talk to these people so that you talk their language and they become so crazy about you that they follow you wherever you go.
Steve Lotes (33:54):
Pat Flynn’s a smart guy.
Sandy Dedeian (33:56):
Yeah. Very interesting.
Steve Lotes (33:58):
Smart passive income guy, right?
Sandy Dedeian (34:02):
Yeah, something like that.
Steve Lotes (34:05):
Yeah. And our last question, when your own entrepreneurial journey is completed, long, long, long time from now, what do you hope your legacy is?
Sandy Dedeian (34:20):
Interesting question. First of all, I don’t think an entrepreneur’s journey ends, because I’ve seen my father, he lived for 78 years. And up until the last day, he was still making plans and he was thinking what kind of business he will open in Canada. Things like that.
Sandy Dedeian (34:43):
So I don’t think it ever ends, but just like I said earlier, no matter where this journey takes me, I would like to make an impact on people. And I would like to help small business owners and entrepreneurs and family businesses, because I’ve been in this my whole life, I was born in it, and I know how it is, I know that you may need some sort of an advice, you may need just a tiny hint or example of something that you can do. And I know that it feels lonely. This journey is a lonely journey. And you’re alone creating these things. If I’m able to create a very small impact in these people’s lives, I would be very, very happy about it.
Steve Lotes (35:30):
Awesome, great answer. And for those in our audience that would like to connect with you, what is the easiest for them to do that?
Sandy Dedeian (35:38):
They can check my website, rectified.co. But also they can connect with me on Instagram, it’s my name, Sandy Dedeian. There’s also the company’s Instagram rectified.co. But the easiest way to connect with me is through my Instagram @SandyDedeian, one word. I’m everywhere. All over social media. They can always find me.
Steve Lotes (36:02):
Perfect. Perhaps what I should do is give everyone the correct spelling of your last name.
Sandy Dedeian (36:08):
Yes. I will give you all the links, maybe you can put it in the description.
Steve Lotes (36:12):
Yeah. We will have all of the links in the show notes.
Sandy Dedeian (36:15):
Amazing. Thank you.
Steve Lotes (36:16):
And before we conclude our episode, do you have any final thoughts you might like to share with our audience of entrepreneurs?
Sandy Dedeian (36:24):
I would say don’t be afraid. If you want to do this so badly, just go for it. You will fail. Learn from those mistakes. Stand up again, go, pivot, create something, just like any other small like baby who’s trying to walk, he just falls and then walks again and then falls and walks again. This is the journey, so just do it and don’t be afraid.
Steve Lotes (36:51):
Yep. That’s a great analogy. Thank you very much. And what about you, Juliet? Do you have any final words?
Juliet Aurora (36:58):
Just thank you very much, Sandy. Through the whole conversation… I mean the audience can’t see her, we’re having a conversation where we can see her as well. Her face lights up as she’s talking about all the things that she wants to do. And I think that’s amazing. And you can hear the passion in your voice, but in your face, you can definitely see it.
Juliet Aurora (37:20):
So for those in our audience that can’t see her, you definitely want to give Sandy a call if you need any help with your marketing because you know that she’s going to want to help you. So thank you very much, Sandy. We appreciate you coming on as the guest.
Sandy Dedeian (37:34):
Thank you for having me.
Steve Lotes (37:35):
Yeah. I absolutely agree. That brings us to our words of wisdom for this episode. And I thought I would share a quote this time from one of my marketing heroes, Seth Goden. It’s hard to find a bad quote by Seth, he has so many. But I’ve always loved this one, and that is, “Don’t worry about finding customers for your products, find products for your customers.” I always thought that was very, very wise advice.
Steve Lotes (38:15):
So again, thank you very much, Sandy. Great job. Lots of great value for the audience. Thank you to my awesome cohost, Juliet. But most importantly, thank you to you our audience for giving us a listen. We hope you found some value, and if you did, we’d love it if you’d subscribe to the podcast ran all the regular places, Smart Man, Smarter Woman, on the website as well smartmansmarterwoman.com.
Steve Lotes (38:41):
So thank you again. Until next time, take good care of yourself and those that you love. Bye for now.
Song by Adam Vitovsky / CC BY 3.0
