We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alexandra Massetti a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alexandra , looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
My Dad. He manages to run and own a scuba diving business, coffee shop and have a full time job in healthcare sales. He did all this while raising 3 daughters and eventually 3 step daughters. He makes it look easy but will drop anything for us at moments notice to be there. I always molded my career after his, to have a full time regular job while building my company and following my passions. He didn’t come from money but was able to own his scuba shop by the time he was 36. As millennials we have hustle anxiety, always having to go harder and tend to put our family balance to the side. My Dad has shown me both of these things can work if you are willing to learn how to work efficiently and learn to let go of control and trust your employees.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
This past year was exceptionally tough for my career and it really woke me up to make big changes. I had to let go of my day job and go all in on building out my agency. I have seen the most success and personal happiness coming from consulting and building sales branded events. I provide consulting to companies and personal brands going to market or launching new products. I also offer fractional work in sales and business development, a full marketing team, tech stack creation and my newest venture- sales events. I’m most excited about the event space. I create in-person events for sales teams and solo entrepreneurs that are a fun way to get new clients. We have had events during convention weeks to add to the fun and attract clients. We created paid workshops where professionals got to create their own career highlight reels and add public speaking to their resume. We have upcoming events to do a wine tasting and leadership education day as well as a weekend women’s retreat to develop personal branding and “audacity” skills.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
There has been a lot of trial and error here. When I consult companies it requires me to be pretty direct and not always warm and fuzzy. I would say to learn different types of communication styles that fit to multiple types of personalities. C-levels and sales people often focus so hard on knowing their product or service that they can struggle to translate its value. Know enough to be dangerous about your offering but focus on knowing your buyers, soft skills. What part of a clients life can you make better? I don’t mean filling out excel forms faster or cool Ai- but what will they feel adds value to their life . The last advice I have is about networking. Always work to have partnerships, become a customer of your clients. If you can white label yourself into a competitors product- then do it. Find the gap in a company offering that you can fill for them. There are always new ways to create additional revenue, chase them relentlessly.
Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?
The best advice I have gotten has been “do what you are good at, what you love and outsource the rest”. Allow people who are strong in your weak spots to do that work. Hiring an expert is an excellent way to learn and gives clients the best experience. Personally, I have started to learn SEO. I was surprised how much I loved it and am working with someone who is very knowledgeable and passionate. I wouldn’t have taken on SEO alone and felt it was a solid offer, self teaching is too limiting. My one client is a public speaker, she gets requests to teach pitching for funding but it’s not her strength or her passion. She has been successful and created pitches but instead of selling to sell she now refers clients to a pitch master. The same client also works with small businesses to showcase their products by gifting her clients regularly. It’s important to be a giver in the business world and a champion for others.
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