Law Smith: Stand Up Comedy Changes How You See Business with Tocobaga Consulting

Is your business's reputation what you want it to be?

Tocobaga Consulting is a company focused on helping other companies with their design, branding, development, and marketing. Tocobaga Consulting is the place to go for consulting and strategy to boost your company’s reputation. They want to get more eyes on your business.

Tocobaga Consulting offers online and traditional advertising services. email marketing, SEO, Google ads, YouTube ads, Facebook ads, Twitter ads, LinkedIn ads, podcast ads, TV ads, radio ads, newspaper ads, brochures, flyers, and much more.

They also offer ways to boost your online reputation. Their online boosting services include customer reviews, content creation, custom video content, press releases, customer service quality control, client testimonials, SEO keyword research, social media account management, and more.

With Tocobaga Consulting, your business and clientele list will improve before you can say “Company Reputation”.

Learn more about how Tocobaga Consulting can help you improve your business reputation by listening to this episode of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur above and don’t forget to subscribe on  Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – Spotify –Google Play –Castbox – TuneIn – RSS.

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0:00
Welcome to the thoughtful entrepreneur Show. I'm Josh Elledge, founder and CEO of up my influence.com. We turn entrepreneurs into media celebrities, grow their authority, and help them build partnerships with top influencers. We believe that every person has a unique message that can positively impact the world. stick around to the end of the show, where I'll reveal how you can be our next guest on one of the fastest growing daily inspiration podcasts on the planet in 15 to 20 minutes. Let's go. Right, Law Smith, you are the president of Tocobaga Consulting and you also happen to be a stand up comedian, and so on on this conversation. I actually want to talk about that and kind of figure out what the timeline was and then figure out you know, for someone who is looking to advanced professionally could stand end up actually help them. And interestingly enough, my background is I actually took a year of improv for for that specific reason because I do a ton of media. And so I I'd look at comics or people that are doing improv I say, my gosh, they just seem so witty. How do they do that? And, you know, after a year or so of doing that, you start to Okay, all right, I see how they do that. And and those skills have been crazy valuable. But give me an idea of the time I which came first business or stand up.

1:36
They both happen at the same time, which is a not a great answer, because I hate when people just kind of Polish politic their way through it. But I did stand up when I started doing my entrepreneurship classes at undergrad program at Auburn, and then just dipping my toe into those open mic waters. So kind of at the same time, and I kind of approached both in a similar way. It's all possible to me.

2:02
Yeah. And so, um, how do you use that? So the work in stand up? It kind of, can you take me through? What is the work of stand up like, and what are the skills that you develop in that process? And then we'll talk about, like, how that's applicable to business. Yeah. So

2:20
what a lot of people don't realize with stand up is you have to have a strong work ethic, people don't realize you're getting up about 300 times a year to open mics and things that you're really, you're negative some game for a while financially, and you have to just like entrepreneurship, you have to be a little crazy to do it. Because you're not good in the beginning, and you're not good at whatever first venture you have. You're not very good at it. You don't know how bad you are until you look at retrospectively later. But you have to have a little bit of crazy a little bit of I know I'm not great, but I know I'm getting better. But know that you know it, the big difference is ones in art. And the other is very black and white mathematically, I'd say just by your financials, of whatever that small business venture is. But I'd say you develop a work, work ethic. I failed a lot on stage, which helped me fail in business and not worry, you get a tough skin, you fail a lot in the beginning on stage, and a lot of people don't like to do sales, for instance, and if I had to get now you get pushed into that you go, nothing. There's nothing anybody can say. That's been worse than what I've been told to me by an audience member or another comedian.

3:40
What do you think the worst stand up experience you've ever had was what was the most painful moment that you can recall?

3:45
So about oh nine, I was living in LA we're at a mutual fund company during the day was doing stand up at night. It was actually back here in Tampa where I'm where I'm sitting here doing this interview from In our office in Tampa, Florida and Jackie Mason, I don't know if you remember the great Catskill comedian from Caddyshack to who took over honey Dangerfield spot and the caddy shack cast. Let's just say we have different audiences. And so I was 24 and kind of green. And I got booked through the side kind of through a family friend that I knew and he was a promoter, and Wow, I've never bought I bombed in front of the biggest crowd. Easily the biggest crowd I had, at that point at the stress and over here, which was, I think, a couple thousand so it was a little rough. I had to at one point, I think my biggest laugh was about I was talking about texting or something. And I had to explain what that was. I was like, it's like, yeah, it's like an email but for your phones. Oh, it's like Well he was like remember the you remember the Postal Service and kind of pointed out someone really old just try to go remember the Pony Express and just kind of kept deconstructing to pigeon carry? Yeah. So that but if I didn't take improv classes, I would have been dead. The water for sure. Yeah.

5:21
So, um, what do you do after that? I mean, because, obviously in business, I mean, you can have very painful things that happen in business, you know, maybe it's a cash flow issue. Maybe you you know, a, you know, an employee or a partner, someone like that hoses you or, you know, customer leaves you high and dry. You know, you just, you put yourself in too risky of a position, having experienced the pain of bombing in such a big way. And you're probably like, Why do I keep doing this? Why do I keep putting myself through this? Like, I would imagine then that that bombing is good because it expands your country. zone

6:01
failures. Good. I mean, look, any of these TED talks about business any, anything that you see that's kind of inspirational in business? At least for me, failures, good now failures, only good if you learn from it. Right? Yeah. You're, you're crazy. That's the definition of crazy if I'm getting on stage, and I'm not changing anything. And I expecting different results, right? So it is a good what it did teach me is like, failures fine. And I used to have a fear, a fear of failure, right, which actually makes me feel more, it'll making that step a lot more in a weird way. Because you're worried about failing, so you fail. So once you kind of get in this area where mentally you're allowing yourself to make mistakes, but you're really putting effort behind it and you're writing in this case for stand up, you're writing in a business, you actually wrote a business plan like 3% of small business owners might Write a business outline of a business plan. Right? That's crazy to me. So I grew up in a program where I wrote business plans for businesses around Auburn University. And that's how I cut my teeth in an open mic kind of way, where I didn't know how to write a business plan, but you just go do it. And the other part is, I, I'm part of a generation that I got, this is the best lesson I learned when I worked in corporate for mutual fund company. Shout out to dimensional fund advisors. But the best lesson I learned was like, Hey, I can look this up on my own. We have this great thing called Google. And I remember asking, I remember asking one of my higher ups, I was like, hey, how do you do this thing and Excel or I do a V look up formula. And he goes, Oh, let me let me show you. He comes over my desk, goes on my computer. And he goes on Google. He's like, look it up yourself. And it was like, like, he might as well just don't dummy in the office. And so that is a lesson. of like, a we had these tools to be entrepreneurs now or to do whatever you kind of want. I'm 35 I'm right in that generation between kids always having internet, right available at all times. And the older generation that is still AOL. I had to just get my mom off of AOL pain for a while the other day, so yeah, I'm sandwich right between there. That's why I kind of think our positions really good at explaining the internet, basically, a lot of people. Yeah, yeah. So how does your experience means Dan, does that does that help you with acquiring more customer like for customer acquisition? is are there any lessons you've taken from stand up that have helped you with marketing sales? You know, landing new business? Sure, sure. So I go on stage a lot of the time without any material, and I try to see how far I can go without like doing a joke I've done before. And what that is, is a test in I can look at someone with assault life shirt and I bet they're into Jimmy Buffett. Right? I can I can kind of you can kind of profile a little bit businesses a little bit formulae, a lot of it to me, just like comedians, it's very, you can shoot yourself in the foot. So like, I feel like discipline and habits and things of that nature, knowing what you don't know is a big one, I would say. And by being a comedian, I kind of get a little side. I get to come in and go ask all the dumb questions, right? I have a like a pass on those. But when people sit down now I used to kind of hide it. I used to not tell anybody that didn't know when they come in for business me and now I say it the first five minutes. Because what it does is it's like a cheat code because people are like, Oh, I can be real with you. And we're in this weird area now. You're we're doing this podcast and it's about being authentic. Right? That's What I think a lot of people gravitate towards, I think when you do a podcast for marketing purposes only, it seemed right through that audience of first movers that are listening to podcasts. And I still think it has a lot of room to grow. They they see through that as an infomercial, and people are finding podcasts. Because the, if you think about it, they're not having real conversations. And so they're replacing that with an intimate, it's in your earbuds. And so, I think I think the real talk aspect, it allows us to get get from intro meeting to what are we doing a lot quicker. I've noticed we've cut down I could show you the stats if we had and if I hadn't prepared but I can show you my pipe drive CRM and our from intro meeting to closes down a lot quicker once I've told everybody

10:56
Yeah, I would imagine you know, even if it's someone that says You know, you know if they share anything that's kind of like a, like a creative pursuit or something that they're, you know, they're not very good at or something they're struggling at or something they're constantly working on. Like it just it when someone shares that it just feels more realistic, like, I'm learning water painting or you know, or whatever it might be.

11:23
So I

11:24
do think that there that's, you know, people are like, oh, wow, you know, that's very cool of you. It's very relatable. And, you know, it's, I'm with you, it's like people will get attracted to you for your expertise and your, your authority, but they'll stick around for the authenticity and to hear when you fail, and no, oh my gosh, you know, you're just like me, and Matter of fact, Oh, you're so brave. And you know, I admire you for you know, having, you know, taking those risks. I love to hear about others who take risks.

11:59
Here's the Another big one that no one talks about. And I've written about it, I've talked about it on our podcast, sweat equity, a lot is entrepreneurship is isolating. It's not necessarily lonely. But it's isolating. Even when you have a loved one, that's your partner. Say you're doing a mom and pop kind of venture, that other person, they might be in lockstep with you. They still have a different viewpoint. And so I don't know if you experienced this like I do, but if I have a retainer client with us, we do projects and retainers a lot of the time.

12:35
I'm kind of a,

12:37
an entrepreneurial therapist, because a lot of them don't have people to talk to we work with a lot of small medium businesses. Yeah. And they don't have. I'll try to now now I try to, I try to push that out to here's some places you can go for real therapy, but sometimes they need someone to go Hey, is this crazy? If I want to do this idea, I get a lot of that. And I don't think I think if I didn't have the kind of disposition I did from stand up, I wouldn't have those kind of clients be very vulnerable to ask that kind of question. Because look, anybody who's listening to this trying to do their own hustle, that's kind of who we're trying to do our podcast towards, is the younger versions of us, because that's what we'll have you on one day. And we'll ask you, what would you tell your younger self? Because you're always going to make mistakes. So knowing what you don't know and knowing you will fail and knowing that, yeah, there's going to be a lot of nights where you're up, and you're going to be anxious because you don't have all the answers and nothing. Nothing in life is deterministic, even Seinfeld bombs in front of people, right? Like that. There's no there's no one that's 100% awesome. The whole way through, no matter how much our president likes to boast that, you know, and so, if you like that lessons, very paramount for business law.

14:00
What do you think the very first step might be for someone's like, you don't like to try stand up, but I don't know. What do you do? Like how do you how do you try it like it? What are the first things that someone might do? And we I know we only have like a couple minutes left.

14:13
Yeah. A lot of people will ask this. And anybody that is business oriented, I go, all right. You want to serve pizza shop? What did you do? If you didn't know anything about pizza? You go to a bunch of pizza shops. So I tell everybody, go to a comedy club, go to the open mics, do the good shows. And just sit in the back. Just watch. Just look. I used to get a lot of games starting out just by being there showing up a lot. People would never even see my act, but I just was very, I was nice to everybody. And that alone got me booked in the beginning more than my material. So go and see like, Can you handle that? It's Look, I'll tell you like it's you go to these open mics. It might be three hours before you get called up. might hear some of the worst stand up of all time and it's all other comics. It's torture, but it's almost set up in that way that, hey, if you wanted to, you want to be a CFP, you're going to start entry level somewhere and you're going to do a form of grant right? somewhere else, right? Mm hmm. So now

15:28
what to do go out there and do it. Nice. So,

15:30
so Tokyo, paga consulting. So you guys are on the web at Taco bar, GA so tocoba.ga. So you consulting. You work with a lot of law firms. You're based here in Tampa. Do some beautiful work. I mean, I love the branding on your website. That's what services do.

15:55
So we're about to start.

15:58
I'm going to start revamping side a little bit, actually. So I'm going to make a category, we're seeing a lot more operations and productivity help automation. And to me a lot of a lot of digital marketing is automation. It is a lot of planning. It's a lot of arms. So I see that as kind of our next kind of, we've been around for years. I think we're starting to get to that growth area where we're going to take that leap here and and get to that next that next level. And I think a lot more people are seeing the advantages via automation and digital ops.

16:36
Nice, nice. Alright, well, Law Smith, you are the president of Tocobaga Consulting and a stand up comic. Thank you so much for joining us. Hey man. Thanks for having me. Thanks for listening to the thoughtful entrepreneur show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit up my influence.com slash gassed You've got something out of this interview, would you share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or posted on the socials. A few do that tag us with the hashtag up my influence. Each month we scour Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. We pick one winner from each platform, and you get crowned king or queen of that social media now what do you win? We're going to promote you and your business to over 120,000 social media fans totally free. Now. Can you also hook us up now in your podcast player right now? Please give us a thumbs up or a rating and review. We promise to read it all and take action. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. Your feedback helps us fulfill that mission. And while you're at it Hit that subscribe button. You know why tomorrow? That's right, seven days a week, you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed 15 minutes a day. My name is Josh Elledge. Let's connect on the socials, you'll find all the stuff we're doing at up my influence.com Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of the thoughtful entrepreneur movement.