Social Capital: Celebrating 400 Episodes with Lori Highby and Abby Radewahn

And that was just like one of my favorite memories of childhood. But my family moved up to Wisconsin in my high school years, and I still played travel softball and high school softball then. And I exhausted all the art classes that were available in my high school, so much so that I ended up doing a really cool program at the Milwaukee Art Museum called Art Satellite, where for half a day in an entire semester, I was at the art museum, you know, learning art history, doing art projects, and it was with students like all around the Milwaukee area that had done, exhausted their art programs as well. Got my Associate's in Marketing, my Bachelor's in Marketing, and ultimately my Master's in Business Administration.

From a creative perspective though, I love drawing and painting, so I try to do that in my free time when it allows.

Yeah, I've seen your house covered in your paintings. Very cool. So, for people who know you well, they know that sports are a really big part of your life.

Uh huh.

I mean, even to the extent of like his punishment for us was doing pushups when we were at home. So, you know, we learned a lot about, we just learned a lot about working together as a team, and I think that's really important, something that I carry over. From a professional standpoint, you know, sports, team sports in particular, and even individual sports, but that's a longer tangent.

Team sports is a lot about communication, and teams that don't communicate well have issues. And that's one of the things, and you've heard me say this, we over communicate. I don't care if you think everyone knows the answer, you still communicate the answer. Even in playing hockey, I mean, communication on the ice is critical because you wanna be able to hear that your teammate is behind you.

You may not be able to see them, but if they vocalize if they're around you, it makes it easier to anticipate what the play is gonna be going forward.

Get quotes from a number of different printers, and then find, like, you know, the most bang for the buck. We put our, you know, markup on it for managing the project and the design. Well, I ended up giving the client one estimate and then going with a different vendor, not realizing that they were the, the pricing was not right.

At the end of the day, we ended up paying more money than the client had paid us for the print work. So, I learned a lesson, the owners learned a lesson about, you know, paying a little bit closer attention to what I was doing. But yeah, it's all about paying attention to the details.

And that's when I started building websites on my own. I got my first three clients by doing snail mail. I literally mailed a letter to every single person on the planet that I have contact information to. And I did an email to every single email address I had. That's how I got my first three clients.

And here we are today.

And I think that there's a lot of people that use that power for the wrong reasons and I'm a big believer in conveying, you know, the truth and doing the things right, the right way. So, that's kind of the approach that I took with that.

I mean, Social Capital is all about networking and relationships. And, you know, once you lose the trust of someone, that it's not just that person, but you don't know who else they're talking to, who else they're connected to. So I always do my best to function in doing what I believe is 100 percent the right path to pursue.

So if you want to see any sort of progress, you have to make a decision and not question it. You have to start moving forward. You can always stop and make adjustments to the decision, but not making a decision at all, you're still in the same spot you were at that point in time.

Is that something that you knew right away going into your founder journey or is it something that you had to learn along the way?

COVID is a perfect example of that among many other things that disrupt the plan that you build. But one of the biggest things that I learned while running a business is that my attitude and how I show up every day to the team is what permeates across the rest of the team. So if I come in crabby and unmotivated, that is going to just seep into everyone else's vibes.

If I come in excited, energetic, and want to get shit done, that's how everyone else is going to feel. So it's, I learned I have to take care of myself so that I can show up every single day to keep everyone else energized. Kind of like on a team.

I wasn't even hosting websites at the time. So yeah, and it's just the evolution of the industry. And digital in general has changed so much that is someone that really believes in doing what's best for the client is how we've really evolved. So, before I started the agency, I was doing PPC, SEO, and email marketing for another company.

And those were acronyms that people didn't really know at the time, first off. So I knew how to do all those things, but I just found that, you know, building websites was kind of the sweet spot initially, but folks would come to me and say, Hey, what's this Facebook and should I be on it? And how do I do this for my business?

Or we built this site and how do I show up at Google? And I would just tell them what to do. And well, can you do it for me? Like, hello, light bulb. So that's kind of how we've evolved to be more of, you know, full digital agency.

And then eventually I realized like, oh, there's people that do this and this is what their business is. So yeah, the first kind of person I outsourced work to was a bookkeeper. And that just was huge. You know, granted, I was understanding that I have to pay for their services, but it saved me a ton of time.

I got my weekends back, you know, from that perspective. And yeah, and then I hired an attorney and to help with the contracts and create all of the baseline contracts for us to make sure they're protecting us the right way, right? And so yeah, I've got an accountant who handles, you know, the, the taxes and whatnot.

So I've got a business coach. Again, I don't have all the answers. So it's, it makes sense to not try to spread yourself too thin, but to really just focus on your zone of genius.

And I'd say more times than not, especially in that small business entrepreneurship world, people are going to say yes, because they more than likely had someone else that they could kind of lean into. And good people are going to want to pay it forward.

And you're going to attract your like minded individuals if you're just being your true self. Two is to give first. And it doesn't have to be anything super big or fancy. Just, you know, a, a, a book. You know, if someone mentioned a book or recommended a book, give a book. If someone mentioned a favorite restaurant they like to go to, if someone says I'm looking for a dog sitter and I've got a friend who babysits dogs, make a connection.

Just give something first. And the third thing is to follow through. If you did make a commitment, you have to make sure you do that. If you don't follow through on that commitment that you made, you're automatically leaving a bad taste in that person's mouth and you're destroying the trust.

And I was like, I'll go. That sounds cool. And you know, it was a bunch of people sitting at a table, eating, shaking hands, drinking, like, this is fun. Why don't I, how come no one ever told me about this before? And then I actually ended up getting a prospective client for the agency just because I was being Lori. You know, they were interested in having a deeper conversation and, and that's where I'm like, Oh, this, okay. This is what networking is. I thought it was gonna be like super scary, but it's just about building relationships.

Or going in with a different mindset of not, I'm, I'm not trying to make new relationships, but I'm like, I'm writing a paper for school. You know, like you're, you're kind of going in playing tricks with your mind a little bit. That can be helpful. And start small, just reaching out and asking for stuff.

So I'm, hey, I've got a couple of questions. I'm interested in this career path. You know, again, most people are going to say yes and want to be helpful as opposed to ignoring you.

I, you know, I just, I just show up and be Lori. I used to have a lot of reservations and fears around attending events, but I've learned to just be comfortable with me and who I am and the right type of people will come and talk to me. So I just be me and the right people come talk to me, or they send people to me.

Yeah, I just go be your authentic self and don't be afraid to ask questions. Show genuine interest in someone too.

Yeah, there's two things. One, I wish I would have spent or found a way to stay closer connected to the professors that I had when I was in school. LinkedIn wasn't a thing back then, so there, you know, I had, like, their phone number probably on the syllabus, which I'm sure is long gone. Like, that was probably the only way I could have connected.

I remember that, like, you would actually call them, which no one probably even does that anymore, to tell them, like, I won't be in class next week, or whatever. But I had some amazing professors, so I really do wish that I was more intentional about staying in touch with them. But I also would have found a mentor sooner actually to help guide me. Especially on the, not just the entrepreneurial path, but really the career path that I took, because I was really making those decisions on my own and didn't have someone really like guiding me professionally, like saying, you should go to a networking group, or this is the group you should go to, or this is the company you should, you know, work with.

So I wish I had.

I don't devalue it. The network that I have, even though I'm not 100 percent this type of relationship with everyone I'm connected with. When I do need to tap into my network or find someone, it is great to see the, who I'm connected with and that's where I start that conversation. Even if, and I always share with anyone that from a networking perspective, if there's someone I can connect you with that's on my LinkedIn, let me know, because that one to one connection is going to go a lot smoother than someone blindly reaching out.

So even though I may not have that trusted relationship with them yet, at least I have a smoother in because I have a connection with them.

Do you have any final words of wisdom for your dedicated Social Capital audience before we wrap up?

Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next episode.