Why Slow Growth is the Secret to Long-Term Business Success with Danielle Meadows-Stinnett

Kathi: Hi, everyone. I'm back. I am with Danielle Meadows, and we are here to talk about branding and fun stuff and all the stuff that us girl entrepreneurs want to know. So welcome to the show, Danielle.

Danielle: Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

Kathi: Yeah, it's a pleasure. So tell me a little bit about the story of how you've gotten into this gig that you're doing right now, and give me a little bit of background for the listeners out here.

Danielle: Sure. So again, I'm Danielle Meadows-Stinnett. I'm owner of Octane Design Studios. It's a 12-year-old digital marketing and branding firm based in the heart of the Bluegrass. I started this really from a place of need. I was then a pregnant mother of a toddler in a 500-square-foot apartment, and that's really where the story of humble beginnings began. Coming into the world as a third-generation entrepreneur, watching my grandparents, watching my parents, watching my aunts, my uncles, my cousins, we're a large family. Being able to see my family define their own destinies and their own path outside of society's standards for us was really defining for me. I knew that I could do it because that representation was already there. And that's really what gave me this gusto to step out and create Octane.

Kathi: That's fantastic. I love that you're from an entrepreneurial background. That's really great. How did it feel when you landed your first client? First off, what did you do for your first client, and how did it feel when you landed that gig?

Danielle: Absolutely. I first started out seriously only searching for nonprofits. That was my niche in the beginning, and I was very proud to be able to serve churches and nonprofits in that area, just giving them lots of extra graphics, whether it's for newsletters or T-shirts or youth groups, things along those lines. I was doing all of these extra strategic marketing pieces behind the scenes, and I actually really got attached to the idea of being that dark horse. Well, we have graphics covered. We don't need an actual agency person. We have someone for that. Phrases along those lines kept building and building, and I really just fell in love with the idea of helping build up other people. They don't have to know my face. They don't have to know my name. But we're that process and the unseen force that makes stuff happen.

Kathi: Ah. So tell me about your first client. Who was it? Was it a nonprofit?

Danielle: It was a nonprofit. The nonprofit specifically was a church, and we were able to work on their logo and establish some church bulletin pieces, and it was really good to work in that atmosphere. But I knew that I was slowly growing out of it as other small businesses were also coming along and telling me, hey, I really love the work that you did for this nonprofit. Would you be willing to work over here? We're not a nonprofit. Is that okay? I would start to get a little bit of that, and that helped grow my base.

Kathi: That's funny. It's been a nonprofit theme for me today, talking to other entrepreneurs. And I think it's funny that they said, is it okay, because we're for-profit. There always seems to be a big distinguishing difference between the two.

Danielle: There is, you're absolutely right. And I think what really defined it for me was, am I still helping people in need? I think that was the bottom line. So it didn't matter at that point if it was for-profit or not. It was, is there a need, and how can I help fulfill that need?

Kathi: Yeah, absolutely. So if you were to do it all over again and reinvent, because you've been in business for quite some time, would you choose the same exact path, or would you do things a little bit differently? And if so, what would you change?

Danielle: I think I intentionally grew slow on purpose. I scaled very, very slowly on purpose. And maybe I did want to put my gas on the pedal just a little bit more in the beginning. Maybe I could have. I saw a lot of my colleagues do that, and some of them are still around today. Some of them are burnt out and now working other jobs and moved on to greener pastures. But I think that's been the magic of building my own business: I can choose how fast I want to go. I can be in the driver's seat, or I can be in the passenger seat, or I can sit in the back and ride the trunk. It's one of those situations where I just had more comfortable purpose. I felt like a much more driven person when I was just in my purpose. So again, I've watched other people in my same age, in my same culture and subgroups, and watching them put gas on a lot of things and then very quickly either burn out, or something else would happen and they would have to step back. And I was always in a position where I was just a slow grow. It's a slow advancement, but it was a very profitable one.

It's a slow advancement, but it was a very profitable one.

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Kathi: Well, that's fantastic. And the word purpose is something that we all strive to get right. Everybody wants to be on purpose, and I agree with you: when you're on purpose, things come more easily to you. And kudos to you for not going full tilt boogie and not having to have everything perfect, and just going at your own slow pace, because I think it does help sustainability a lot. And your colleagues who put the pedal to the metal, so to speak, the ones that are still around probably did reach that breaking point where they're like, okay, okay.

Danielle: Yes, you're absolutely right. And many of them would come to me and say, hey, what did you do, and how did you do it, and how can I learn from you? And it's so funny, because in the beginning those tables were turned very quickly: what did you do, how did you do it? So it's funny to see that reflected now, later in life.

Kathi: Yeah, that's pretty cool. So do you have a favorite hack that you would use whenever you're feeling a little bit stressed out or burnt out? What do you do to de-stress and defrag?

Danielle: I used to joke all the time, but it's really not a joke: I take long meditative walks in between client meetings. I sound like I'm on a dating app, but honest to goodness, that's really what it is. It's really taking that intentional break for yourself. I like the idea also, obviously, I work with a team across five countries, and it's really interesting to see the dynamic of the strength of us as women, because we are all women on staff. So it's very cool to have that balance. You know that someone's having an off day. There's still a purpose driven for work, but there's also this other purpose of, I just want to help her out. I just want to be supportive to her. And I think having that type of co-working atmosphere is very conducive and very empowering. So that also helps me de-stress in a lot of areas too.

Kathi: And I'm sure everybody has permission to say, I'm getting a little bit burnt out here, going to go check out for a minute or two, or take a long walk as you do. I think we all have our own ways of doing it. I have an all-women-driven company too, and it's cool because we know how to communicate with each other more so than men. You throw a man into the mix, nothing wrong with men, but the dynamics change. How do you say it? We're more open and less judgmental and less on guard to say how we really feel and say, hey, I need some help, I'm feeling stressed, I'm feeling burnt, or whatever. So yeah, having women colleagues.

Danielle: Yes, absolutely. There's just something unique yet very, very similar between us. So it's very easy to have that platform and build on it, because that just establishes more growth and more closeness between each other in that relationship. So that helps in a work-conducive atmosphere.

Kathi: So I know everybody's thinking this, and I have to ask a question. You have staff across five continents, or five countries, right? How do you handle that? How does that work time-wise and implementation-wise?

Danielle: Yes. So time-wise, definitely, when we have staff meetings three times a week, there are women on here who are coming in at nine o'clock at night for them, whereas we're having it at 9:30 in the morning our time. I try to make it as simple as possible and keep them short as much as I can. Usually it's no more than an hour. I really try very hard to make sure, one, obviously, we're all speaking the same language. That's really important, step one.

Kathi: Yes, exactly.

Danielle: It doesn't have to necessarily be fluent, but that helps. We definitely love the idea of, if work is there, then that's the magic for us, coming into a digital marketing space where design is our language. We say English is great if you work it, great, but really our love language is design. So if that's there and that gift is there, then we can still talk to each other regardless. So we love being able to use that as a communication base. So we have staff meetings three days a week. We have bonus incentives for people who want to bring in some extra things to Octane. Game strategy is a huge part of our Octane pillar. The strategy of play is what we use a lot in the office. So we do have off days, and we have play days. We have online play dates where we'll play a virtual game. We'll play Scrabble, Words With Friends, or just something where all of us can still interact with each other, but with less of an expectation of work.

Design is our language.

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Kathi: So I love that. And you can get to know each other so much easier over the game. There are so many more things that really connect us more so than divide us, and so it's really cool to see that come into play when you go to work every day. And what a good treat for the people that are around the world that might not have ever had access to someone else in a different country. You're really stretching and expanding all your staff. So wow, that's really cool.

Danielle: It's really cool. It really is. And it gives you such a deeper appreciation for just being a woman, a deeper appreciation for the strength that you have as an individual and how much more strength you have as a team collectively. So it's really amazing to have women in Kenya, Argentina, India. We're all over. So I think it's really cool to be able to have that type of backing, knowing that you're not the only one.

Kathi: Yeah, absolutely. So what's the one lesson that your business has taught you that you think others should learn?

Danielle: Oh my goodness. Go at your own pace. I think that's really the heart of it. I chose to slow grow, and it definitely had its ups and downs, its tumbles, its faults. But at the end of it, I can say that it was mine. I can say that it was my step in my journey, and I have so many other amazing experiences that create the wealth of what I have. A lot of people think about wealth in terms of money, in terms of monetary things, and really the wealth of my journey is nothing in comparison to the monetary value. It's really the relationships that we've been able to build, the businesses we've been able to launch, the relationships we've made with women and men from across the world. So that's really the gifts and the greater coins that we receive in this journey.

Kathi: Sounds like you're a really good leader. It really does. I'm quite impressed by that. That's pretty cool.

Danielle: Thank you.

Kathi: So what's the best piece of advice that anybody's ever given you as far as being an entrepreneur, or actually even life?

Danielle: Yeah, I was going to say this one's life. The personal one that I give when I speak to kids, like middle school kids, when we mentor them, is: life is less like Mario and more like Tetris. We tell people all the time, if you're really into gaming, you're totally going to get this analogy, because in Mario you have to rush and race and go as fast as you can to get to that goal, to get to that Princess Peach in the castle. And in Tetris, it's really about the strategic moves you make to turn and build your blocks to get to the next level. And that's really what life is all about. It's strategically moving the blocks and strategically placing them in certain places of your life so that you can level up, essentially. So I really encourage that. And then a very practical piece of advice that my dear family friend told me was to never settle. I didn't quite understand that when it was first said to me. I did, but I didn't. You hear it and you're like, okay, I got it. But then when certain things happen in your life, you go back to those simple phrases, and it just has a whole new meaning and a whole new perspective. So those are the two pieces that I would gladly give to anyone out there.

Life is less like Mario and more like Tetris.

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Kathi: I love that. So what does don't settle mean to you now?

Danielle: Now it means don't settle on myself. At first it was don't settle relationship-wise, where it was originally given to me. Now it's don't settle on your dreams, don't settle on the goals that you have for yourself, don't settle on people that may be in and around your life that are encouraging you to go a different path than what your heart says to do. Just don't settle in those ways. And I think that's really what's been challenging and wrestling with me the past three or five years.

Kathi: Yeah, I love the fact that you take the entrepreneurial shift as a Tetris game, of course, being a professional organizer and loving Tetris. And I think you're so right, because you always have to keep moving a block, after block, after block. But for you and for all of us, it doesn't have to be the same block in the same place facing the same direction. It's all different.

Danielle: Yes. And there's no wrong way. So if maybe there's a misstep, and maybe I should have put that block there, it doesn't even matter, because it's all just getting to where you are and getting to a point where you have that job satisfaction and you're loving what you're doing. And I think for us women, it's the camaraderie. It's like what you've built: having a team of people that you can all relate to, that you can share wins with, share not-so-good stuff, and move forward with it as a team.

There's no wrong way.

Kathi: Yes. So I know you probably have something that you want to offer the listeners, viewers, whatever you happen to be out there, because you can do all three here. What is it that you'd like to offer, Danielle?

Danielle: Absolutely. So we're really wrapping up our Q1 Essentials online courses, which is literally a whole month full of courses that you can take over the course of, technically, six months. It ends this month, on the 31st, I believe. And it really is about 12 mini courses total, covering everything from digital marketing in terms of learning the basics of Canva or learning WordPress or understanding how to strategically work with maybe podcasting or Google Ads, things along those lines. We really just choose to use this platform to educate as many people as possible who are just wanting to level up in whatever way they can without forking an arm and a leg for it. So we're really excited about participating and wrapping that up very soon. And then right after that, we do this really cool experience called Canva Critiques Workshop, where we literally tell people, send us your Canva links, and we will actually dissect it as a class and put it back together again, and you get practically a free graphic out of it. It's really fun, and we do it in a fun way, and you leave with this amazing infographic of how you can build and play on your own terms, at your own pace.

Kathi: Wow, that's fantastic. Okay, so the link will be below. So the classes are available now, is what you're saying?

Danielle: They are available now through the end of this month, through the 31st, and they're at q1essentials.com. That's why we call it Q1, for quarter one, first quarter of the year. We're really excited again just to wrap that up over the next couple of weeks and then move straight into our Canva Critiques, which we do quarterly, all year long. So every quarter there's an opportunity for you to participate in Canva Critiques.

Kathi: Excellent, excellent. I don't know if this will launch prior to the end of Q1, but if not, you'll probably have a replay on that sometime?

Danielle: Yes, we sure will, sometime later this year.

Kathi: So if you missed Q1, the wrap-up with all the courses, you can surely just keep in touch with Danielle. I love the Canva thing. Everybody needs to get a little bit of critique on what they're doing there. And I learned how to use Canva anyhow, right?

Danielle: We teach all the shortcuts so you can work smarter, not harder.

Kathi: I love that. Love that. That's very generous, especially as a graphic design agency, or people who do the marketing and branding. I find that a lot of designers are just real protective of Canva or whatever. And yeah, sometimes it can be a curse word.

Danielle: You're absolutely right. But we're here to make that job so much easier for people who are just novices. We have this phrase that we say: you walk in a novice, you come out a pro, when you step into these places. So it's really fun. It's highly energetic. It's really entertaining, because people want to see a designer just very quickly put things together. How did you do that? Can you break that down for me? So we're happy to provide that service, and it is a cost, but it's very, very low, minimal. The cost of a pizza is what you could do to learn this skill. We do that because we just humbly want to give back to people who are truly trying to level up their own business at their own pace.

Kathi: I love that. Okay, back to the pacing. I like you. Slow and steady Danielle is what we're going to call you.

Danielle: All right, that's perfect. Hey, it's the way to go. One foot in front of the other, and make sure your foot is on solid ground before you make that move, is one way to go about it, for sure.

Kathi: And it's actually a tried-and-true method, especially according to you. So what should we have talked about? What have we not covered here in this conversation that you would like to present to the listeners?

Danielle: Well, in case you are not able to actually find us or see these extra services that we're talking about, you're more than welcome to follow our podcast, which is the More Than Graphics podcast. That is also a great place for women. It's for women creatives and women in tech, and it's like our virtual safe space for women. We talk about so many different topics, from rest to self-care to also the technicality of things, everything that's happening in and around our world and how that affects us in our nine to five. I originally created that podcast for women who are introverts, if you will, like myself, believe it or not. And we also have spaces for women who are both in a corporate setting or entrepreneur setting, who really believe they can be more than just whatever their name badge says, and really believe that they are in a place where they could be more than just their nine to five. So that is what we do when we're not designing: podcasting.

Kathi: I love it. Definitely check out the podcast, and I'll put the link below on my podcast page to your podcast over there.

Danielle: Absolutely. Hey, there is more than enough out here, and just sharing what we all do, I think, is the win-win-win of being women entrepreneurs, for sure.

Kathi: So do you have an organizing hack? I did forget to ask you that. Is there a hack that you use to keep yourself organized with all the things that you're doing and all your staff all around the world?

Danielle: I have quite a few. Slack. I don't know what I would do without Slack. That's our internal communication program that we choose to use for keeping us all together in one spot, whether we're laughing at each other's GIFs or commenting on the social media schedules for a client. All of our communication practically is there. Obviously, using things like StreamYard, wonderful tools to schedule and create videos on the fly that we can also use for internal purposes and for teaching purposes, where Q1 Essentials is really happening. We also do our podcasting on the same platform. And then also Trello. Oh, what would we do without Trello? Trello is where our heart resides in a lot of areas for project management. I have a project manager who consistently tells me all the time, I don't know where we'd be without Trello. It's one of those amazing, magical organizational tools. There are other ones out there, like Notion, things along those lines, and they're very helpful, but Trello is just a great organic way to build the things you want to build, how you want to build it, without being too technical. So yeah, I really love Trello.

Kathi: Oh, I love Trello too. And Slack is perfect for people that are around the world. I've been in Slack groups a lot throughout the course of my journey. But yeah, I love Trello, and I agree, it's for visual creatives. It's brilliant for us, because we can move things around and see everything we want to see. Gotta love Trello. It's not that complicated.

Danielle: Yeah, absolutely. And any type of scheduling, that you could find a scheduler. I have really done a really deep dive into Jotform recently, because they've really come up a level the past two years.

Kathi: J-O-T? Jotform?

Danielle: Yes. So that was something that, when I first started graphic design way back when, 14 years ago, it was one of those things where it's just a soft form. But they've really evolved over the years. Now they're doing a lot more with payment portals, custom coding options. So just being able to use that also is a cool level up for people who don't want to code all the things but are still wanting those things on their website.

Kathi: Okay, that's really good. I haven't checked them out for a long time. They were limited last time I saw them, so I'll definitely check into those too. Jotform.com, I believe it is, right?

Danielle: Yes, that's right.

Kathi: Cool. Well, thank you for all those tips. I love the organizing hacks that we all can share. Check out all the resources. And again, there's no one way to do anything. It's really about you and how you want to run your business: slow, fast, medium, tech, non-tech, get support, don't get support. Whatever you do, though, get support from other women entrepreneurs, because we've all been there, having the same issues and similar crises and similar wins and similar things, and we're the ones to help each other. Really, that's what it's all about.

Danielle: Yes.

Kathi: Oh, I thank you so much, Danielle. I'm so impressed with your company, and I definitely want everybody to check you out. So check it out. If you can't get into that first part, because I don't think you're going to be out in Q1 based on my schedule, you can definitely do the Canva thing and take the Canva challenge and submit something that you've created to Danielle and get a really good expert view of what you're up to.

Danielle: Yes. Each one teach one. But yes, absolutely.

Kathi: Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. And thank you guys for listening in.