How to Stay Intentional & Impactful to Run a Mission-Driven Business with Dana Magnus

Kathi: Hi everyone, I'm back. I am back with my girlfriend Dana Magnus. She is the marketing strategist of The MKTG Brand. So marketing, marketing, marketing, and it's all about mission. So today we're going to talk about how to be more purposeful with your mission, how to create a mission, how to follow your mission, how do you use your intention to create what you really want to do. Because as entrepreneurs, we are all here to create something that will cause an impact in the world. So that's what we're going to talk about today. It is perfect timing, and I want to welcome Dana, my girlfriend.

Dana: Hey everyone. Thank you so much, Kathi. I'm excited to dive in with you.

Kathi: Absolutely. So, okay. So you're the marketing queen. I know this to be true. How did you get there, Dana? What's your backstory?

Dana: Sure. So I started my business actually out of a complete happenstance and mistake. It was such a weird situation that I was in. I was an entrepreneur. I was a headshot photographer and wedding photographer. Traveled around the globe for destination weddings and a lot of different events. And I became passionate about serving entrepreneurs and business owners, helping them to take their branding headshot. A lot of them came to me for headshots, and when I started to ask a little bit more strategic storytelling questions, like, how are we going to be using these photos? Are we doing banners on your social media? All those more tactical questions, they were deer in the headlights. And it was apparent to me that a lot of people weren't connecting who they were and what they stood for and what stories they wanted to tell with the way that they were presenting themselves in their business, such as their headshot or their marketing collateral. And right then and there, the conversations that started to spark up became a whole new business and all these offerings that now I help support people with. So we are four years into it, going on year five, and I couldn't be happier. Finally finding that passion since I was 10 years old of picking up a camera, to also incorporating my degree in marketing, and how it all came together. And so here I am as a marketing strategist, helping support people with their big mission, their big story, and then being able to go out in the world and share it.

Kathi: Yeah. And it's so important. A lot of people say, oh, I need a headshot. But they have no idea why they need the headshot, or who do they want to be in that headshot.

Dana: That's right.

Kathi: It's all about the image and the projection. And over the years, I've discovered the same thing: people don't have their backstory or their forward story. They just know that they need to do it.

Dana: Right. I say the internal talk is so much more important sometimes than the external talk. Being very clear and concise and focused in what you want to present yourself as is really just showing up in the world and showing up as your next-level self, which is so important when it comes to growth, if growth is your goal.

The internal talk is so much more important sometimes than the external talk.

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Kathi: Absolutely. And not just showing up willy-nilly. The authenticity, I think, is really what the world is coming around to. Thank goodness. So we no longer have to put on a superficial coat. We want to be who we are. And I know that you do that very well. You help people bring out who they really are. You were such a good photographer. You still are such an amazing photographer. But tell me about your first client when you dug into it and you're like, oh, okay, we need to talk about what you want to look at. How did that look and how did it feel? What was the experience for your marketing?

Dana: I can think about the sexy industry that I worked out of, leaving marketing to go off on my own with photography. It was insurance. So I had a big network of insurance agents, people in the financial services world, who, with all the regulations and all of the compliance that they had to follow, it wasn't really as popular, if you will, to share yourself, your story, talk about who you were. But when you talk about insurance with these life insurance agents, it was actually a very personal and relationship-first kind of industry. And so people really wanted to see that this person wasn't just trying to turn them into a transaction. It was really thinking about the best interests for people's lifestyles. And so we wanted to build this character of trust, because when I talked to the people, they were trustworthy. They were great people. But then I'd go to their website or go to their social media, and it just seemed so stark and corporate and icky, and there was a huge challenge with the connection. And I just felt like this was something that I can really help with. And lo and behold, I really got passionate about asking the question of, when you're done with your career, when it's all said and done and you're looking down the road at all the amazing things that you've done and the people you've helped, what would you say that mission was? What did you say that you set out to do? What was the whole purpose of all these day-in and day-out hours that you feel like were nonstop that you were working toward? And that is what I feel like people were excited about. They got lit up for that bigger-picture concept. And that's what I think is really important to share in your marketing: what is this all for?

Kathi: Yeah, absolutely. And I think you struck a chord with one of the hardest industries to do that: financial planners and insurance salespeople. They're so heavily regulated. They all think the blue suit coat, the white shirt, the red tie, whatever, this is how I have to look. So I think you've broken so many people out of their shells and helped them find their voice.

Dana: Yeah, exactly. It was so much fun, too, because taking photos in different settings and scenarios which they had never seen before and never put out, it was scary for a lot of these people. So they really needed my help to build that courage as well, to be like, hey, can I post these things, and can I do this? And this was back in 2015, when we still had a lot of opportunity and very little noise when it came to social media. So it was a great time.

Kathi: Yeah. Fantastic. Okay, so let's talk about your mission. What's your mission, girlfriend? I know you have it all laid out. Let's hear it.

Dana: By the end of this decade, in 2030, I want to support 100,000 entrepreneurs to be clear and focused and consistent with their 30-day action plan. So I want everyone to have an intention on where they're going, 30 days at a time, because with those little milestones they can make, I know they're able to push through all the challenges that it takes to stay in business.

I want everyone to have an intention on where they're going, 30 days at a time.

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Kathi: When it comes to small business, breaking it down into steps makes it much less overwhelming and much more doable. I love what you're doing with the program in that regard. That's what happens. People go into overwhelm, but we can all think about 30 days.

Dana: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I do that through my program called CEO Days. It's a great time.

Kathi: Yeah. And I'm going to pop into that. Actually, I didn't tell you that, but I'm jumping in, girl.

Dana: Yay. It'll be fun.

Kathi: I know your stuff is so valuable, and we all need it. We all need reminders, refreshers, re-energizers. We need all that as we go through being an entrepreneur. So, speaking of that, tell me about a time where you just felt deflated and you weren't really on task, out of whack, so to speak. What did you do to bring yourself back from that?

Dana: Kathi, you know me, and we've worked together and been friends for a long time. And so over the past couple years, I actually became a new mom. And that was a whole journey, I would say, of no way to plan, no way to really be prepared for all the things. As many times as you put your list together and try to do your schedules, these little humans will totally take you for a turn, if you will. So that was a time that I just felt like… It was last year when my daughter was born, two weeks before I was expecting, that due date. And I also was growing my company. I had eight teammates, and it was delegating, delegating, delegating, and getting everything off my plate so the business could run successfully and profitably while I had to take somewhat of a maternity leave. And that was a big challenge. It was a challenge for me that I kept pushing and pushing and pushing throughout the rest of the year, and at the end of the year, I decided to actually go down to a company of one. I looked at my whole life and simplified a lot of things, really looking at the currency that I wanted to be growing the most, which was time with my daughter and time with my family. Which is a big shift, as in the first couple years in entrepreneurship, you're thinking about growth and scale and reaching those six-figure incomes and things like that. And so I think the biggest lesson for me was that I looked at my values, and I looked at what was most important to what I needed to do. And this is an exercise I do a lot with my marketing clients: really get clear on what's most important, because we all don't share the same goals across the board. That's what makes being an entrepreneur so cool: we get to decide. And then at the beginning of this year, I was going from a team of eight to just me. I shaved a little bit down on my client load. I spend now only four hours a day on work, for four days a week. And I can actually tell you I've surpassed already the monthly income that I did last year with a huge team. So it's been really cool to be focused. Like I said, be clear on your mission, be clear on what you want to do, and break the rules sometimes, because that's what us entrepreneurs do. We go against the grain, and sometimes it really works in our favor. I think all the time it works in our favor when we stay in alignment with who we are and what we're called to do.

Be clear on your mission, be clear on what you want to do, and break the rules sometimes.

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Kathi: Yeah, it's alignment and it's intention. And it's intuition. If you really feel like this is what you should do, who cares what everybody else says? Do what you do. And if it comes from a deep inner knowing, then you're good to go, no matter what the norm is.

Dana: Exactly.

Kathi: Let's talk about CEO Days, because I think everybody should jump into this. Tell me a little bit about it.

Dana: Yeah. I'm going to see if the virtual background won't distract too much here, but I'm holding up a packet that is about nine to 10 pages long. It's our workbook that we use each month at this virtual Zoom event. It's two hours that I host for free each month.

Kathi: Free, people. Free sign-up. Okay, go ahead.

Dana: Thank you, Kathi. I really appreciate that. But yeah, my goal is to really expand people's accountability and their ability to access focus, where they don't have to spend tens of thousands of dollars on business coaching. Nothing against it, but sometimes they go to a coach and don't even know if they need a coach. And so this is a great time to use the time to work on your business. Look back at the past 30 days, assess where you are, what you've learned, what kind of tools and takeaways you want to bring to the next month, and just take that pause. Because otherwise we're on the hamster wheel, constantly serving our clients, constantly getting everything we need to the bookkeeper and the accountant and the lawyer and all the other things. And this is our time to dream. This is our time to visualize. This is our time to really get intentional on what we want to receive out of our business that we always are just depositing into. So it's a great time to just take a step back and then decide, what are we going to do? What is our intention for the next 30 days? And let's leave with a 30-day action plan. And so sometimes this touch point of just checking in with ourselves in our business is all people need to get over the huge challenges that sometimes shut people out of business. I know if I didn't have that time to get clear and intentional, I couldn't sustain raising my daughter and the child care situation I had, and my availability, having a team as big as I did. It was a colossal drain on me physically, emotionally, mentally, and for my family. So if I didn't take that time to just pause and then say, hey, what am I doing? Why am I doing it? And what do I need to do to move forward with my goals? It could easily spin out of control. And I see that time and time again with people, that they just go, go, and then they realize, holy cow, I'm running 100 miles an hour in the wrong direction.

Kathi: Absolutely. And we're doers. We're action takers. So what we think oftentimes, and I was stuck in this for such a long time, is that I'm just going to be busy. I'm just going to keep doing, doing, doing. But I agree with you totally. If you don't know why you're doing what you're doing, you don't know what you should be doing, and therefore you might be doing it all wrong, or you might just be doing a bunch of stuff that you shouldn't be doing anyhow.

Dana: That's right, Kathi. Amen. Hallelujah.

Kathi: Hey, I've been there, because I am an action taker. So the hardest thing for me to do is to pause and reflect. And that's why I'm joining in on your CEO Days. I think it's really going to help me as well. We all need the opportunity and the invitation to stop. Just stop. Think about it. Lay out the plan. Figure out why we're doing the plan, and if it even resonates. Instead of doing, doing, we're going to be, for a little while, during your thing.

Dana: Yeah. And going back to what you do, Kathi, too, it's staying organized. I love to tell people, print out this workbook, put it in a binder, and then almost use it as your way to look back, like last year on this time. What were your goals? What were your wins? What were your challenges? And celebrate those things. So keeping all those things in one place, in one binder: each month, you insert your next workbook. I bet it's an organizer's little dream idea, of just organizing your business and archiving it away, which is kind of fun.

Kathi: Yeah, absolutely. And putting things on paper, the thought, word, deed thing, actually writing down your intentions and writing down and celebrating. I find that when I published my first book in 2009, I didn't even celebrate. I was like, oh my gosh, how am I going to market it? I went directly into, oh no, now I need to market. What was I thinking? Why did I not stop and celebrate?

Dana: And let's put it this way. If you would have celebrated and cheers'd, and set out your wine and cheese on your beautiful little treehouse there in San Diego, those probably would have been all the marketing collateral that you would have needed to give people that excitement about the book. Sometimes we don't realize that our celebrations are what we want to communicate, and it gets other people excited too, which is again way more impactful. So just a little tip there.

Sometimes we don't realize that our celebrations are what we want to communicate, and it gets other people excited too.

Kathi: Yeah. No, I'm totally with you on that. And I've been putting celebrations into all my trainings lately. And what's interesting, I found, is that people have different ways to celebrate. I ask them, how do you like to celebrate? And some people say, I like to take a long walk. Other people, I'm just going to get up and dance. Other people are like, I'm just going to have a nice bottle of champagne, or I'm just going to sit in the sun for five minutes. So whatever way that we have to celebrate, it's all unique and individual, but there definitely needs to be an homage to an accomplishment. I think that's so very important. So that's why I think your program is so fantastic. So, okay. I know you love to be organized. What's a secret hack that you rely on all the time? What's your favorite little organizing hack or strategy or program that you use, Dana?

Dana: So I'm a big fan of Google Drive. I have kind of mastered it where it speaks to all of my devices. So no matter where I go, everything is organized in its said folders. I'm also somebody who, as I mentioned, works very little nowadays. So yesterday we were on our way to a family party, and I'm like, oh my gosh, I have to get my newsletter out. And it was a great tool, Google Drive, to be able to access what I call my monthly marketing dashboard, which all members in my community and my space who are clients know. Go right to the date and copy and paste the content I already wrote and throw it into my scheduler, which is my email program called Flodesk. And just the simplicity of, no matter where I am, no matter what I'm doing, I've already pre-thought my theme. I have it all down on these dashboards, and I can access them on Google Drive, on my tablet, on my phone, on my desktop, on whoever's device I want to log into. If all those things were stolen out of my backpack one day on an adventure, it's just great that I have everything packed away in Google Drive and in my folders and accessed anywhere on the cloud. It's pretty cool.

Kathi: Yeah, I love Google Drive. That's part of my training that I have for the Get It Done Formula. It's all about Google Drive. And if you have everything stolen, then you still have it. It's not stolen. That's the coolest thing.

Dana: Yeah. I never want that to happen to anyone, but at the same time, it's kind of cool to know that you have that extra insurance in the back of your mind of, okay, all my stuff is…

Kathi: Absolutely. And a password vault too. I'm sure you use LastPass, for now, until who knows? There are always some cool things that come out every couple years, and then that migration of getting everything over. But the more organized you stay, the more organized you will be. So things are always integrable, if that's even a word.

Dana: That's right. And the more organized you are, the less time it takes to do that transition into whatever new whiz-bang thing is happening out there.

Kathi: That's right. I love it. There's always something going on out there. Okay. So if you were to write a book tomorrow, what would your book be?

Dana: My gosh, I've been asked this a couple times. People say, oh, you need to write a book. So I really think the book that I would write would be around setting an intention, one moment at a time, or something like that. I'm really bad at the titles unless I really distill it, but definitely about intention setting. And really what I would love to do is almost make it a workbook, where it's a 365-day intention reminder for people, and then maybe a little story that they can journal on. I love the interaction and giving the empowerment to others to learn and grow just from a quick prompt. So that's what I feel like my book would be about. And of course, anything that they write down could be their marketing prompt for the day as well, if they're more sporadically posting or sharing or doing emails, like I just shared my story. So something like a daily intention-setting book would be fun.

Kathi: That's great. I love it. And you're on your way to doing that already. You probably have it halfway written.

Dana: Probably.

Kathi: I'm thinking you might, with everything you've been doing. Well, that's fantastic. Okay, so I know you have a valuable free resource that you want to talk to people about. Let's bring it on.

Dana: Well, I think that one would be CEO Days. It is free. You get the workbook, you get the time with the community, and it's kind of like a triple-impact kind of experience with the people you get to meet. It's a little networking component. It's the get-it-done time. It's the workbook. And then it's, of course, that accountability. We have that time where you can actually pick something, work on it, and say, wow, what an amazing little homework club for my business I went to. So CEO Days happens every single month, and you can check it out at danamagnus.com/ceodays.

Kathi: Yes. And I will have the link there so you can just click and join. And even if this month doesn't work, it's always happening every single month. So the time is not a problem. You just have to schedule that time in whenever you decide you're going to jump in. So that's really generous of you. It's actually generous of you to give two hours of your life to your people every month. It's fantastic.

Dana: Oh, anytime. It's my mission to help people. So I love it.

Kathi: 100,000. Is that what you said?

Dana: 100,000 people. So I'm not one for doing the math, but if everyone brings a buddy with them, and then they bring a buddy, I'm sure one day we'll reach that even sooner, because it is such a sharable and fun event to do with the buddy system.

Kathi: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I'll put it out there in my newsletter as well. So, all right, gang. I love talking to you. We could just chitchat forever.

Dana: Oh my gosh. About so many topics, too.

Kathi: Yeah. Okay. So what did I miss talking to you about? Is there anything that I should have asked you that we want to discuss?

Dana: I mean, if I were talking about organization and marketing, I would ask people, how are they staying organized with their marketing? And if I were to answer that, definitely keeping your ideas in a very accessible place. Let's face it, we take showers and have those most brilliant thoughts that come up. We're in the middle of driving, and maybe we have the best way that we're thinking about something, and we want to share it out. It's always in those very inconvenient, off-the-computer moments when we get our best inspiration. So if I were to share anything valuable for you to take home today, it would be to find the way that you like to capture your very authentic and genuine thoughts around the way that you think about innovating and inviting people to your business. Some of the things that I tell people: sometimes just simply on your phone, even while you're driving, pop that record on your camera, and even if the video's turned off, just set your phone down and talk into it with your ideas. And then you can later transcribe that with a service. There are so many of them out there now, even for free. And then you can just continue elaborating and writing on there. So little things like that. I know I'm a 2 a.m., wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-with-a-brilliant-idea person. So keep a notepad, if you're somebody who doesn't sleep next to your technology. Keep a little notepad next to your nightstand and just jot down whatever you can, because those are sometimes your brilliant multibillion-dollar ideas. And I think that those are great to record and then keep organized, and put them in a spot, maybe in your Google Drive or your digital files, to then roll those into your monthly content plans.

It's always in those very inconvenient, off-the-computer moments when we get our best inspiration.

Kathi: Yeah, I totally agree. And speaking what you think is so much easier than writing what you think. So just turn it on and blab away, and then you're going to say, oh, I was pretty smart. That was a pretty smart thought. When we try to write it, I think we get all caught up in grammar and all that good stuff, as opposed to just spewing out what we think. So that's really good advice. Love it. Love it. My girl.

Dana: Oh, yay.

Kathi: Yeah. Well, this has been fun. I have to run, and you need to get out of here, too. Now, you only have three more hours you can work today, so have at it. Love it. That's great. Thanks so much, all of you, for listening. Make sure to check the link, check out CEO Days. It's huge for you. It will give you accountability. It will give you visioning, and you'll have a very thoughtful, genuine leader behind you.

Dana: It's so amazing to be here, Kathi. I just love everything you do. Every day I want to reorganize my bathroom after seeing one of your tips. It's like, oh yeah, the little basket idea. I'm like, genius, brilliant. So Kathi, thank you for doing what you do, too. I'm always learning from you, and I really love what you do. Thank you, everyone.

Kathi: Yeah, you guys take care, and signing off for now. Thanks very much.

Dana: Thank you.