Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jake Candiotti. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jake, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?

All the time, I’ve gone back and forth with this question for a while.

The whole “did I make the right choice” doubt usually creeps up when I feel I’ve hit a stalemate. I’m not usually one to shy away from hard or creative work – it’s more so the times where I feel I’ve hit a dead end, and question whether – once I go back down to the base of the mountain – if making the climb back up, yet again, is worth it.

I think pretty often about all the nights and weekends – for all of my 20’s, really – where I kicked myself for not having a salaried 9-5 that would allow me to go out and enjoy my “off” hours. Instead, I was always either working on my business or working at the bar to supplement my income. And that sacrifice didn’t always feel worth making, especially when all my efforts were yielding next to nothing in terms of business growth.

And, for all the times I’ve wrestled with these thoughts, I wish I could say I’ve come to a good answer over the years.

I haven’t.

But there’s two odd, seemingly irrelevant memories that usually pop into my head when this spiral does happen …

The first is when I took out a loan during college to go on Spring Break with everyone else. I went to Cabo, and everyone around me was having the time of their lives; dancing at the clubs, buying tables, laughing with their friends. I was not.

The second is when I went sky diving. I’m an adrenaline junky, and love those kinds of activities. Cliff jumping was my favorite thing I’d done to date; the hike there, the climb up, the fear, the decision to jump. Loved every second of it. Skydiving though, not so much. Sure, it was higher – but I didn’t really do much other than get in a plane and strap myself to someone else to tag along for the ride.

My takeaway from all of this: I only enjoy things I’ve earned. I’m not one of those people who can fake it or delude myself into feeling a sense of accomplishment before I feel I’ve earned it. And I think we’re the only ones who can truly give that to ourselves …

But I think a lot of people try to achieve the same with outside validation and shiny objects, which is also why I think they often feel a bit hollow inside. And why I prefer dive bars to bottle service, cliff jumping to skydiving, and why my favorite car will always be a 2004 Mazda 6 that I bought with busboy money.

And, to be clear, these memories do not light some big, inspirational fire under my ass to “persevere” or give me a “new perspective” on life and the business.

They more so just keep me stubborn enough to stay in the game – not necessarily out of a love for it, but more so as a reminder that I would never truly be satisfied with the alternative.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I run a small web design company that works almost exclusively with small business owners. And I got into it the same way I think a lot of people get into a lot of things …

By accident. Probably not unlike most business owners, I was in my early twenties with big dreams; ambitious startups, groundbreaking ideas, big exits. So much so, in fact, that I moved to Austin, TX to be around as many like-minded folks as possible.

Only to find out: I hated it.

I thought I’d love the forward-thinking, ambitious startup culture; being surrounded by movers-and-shakers with disruptive ideas they couldn’t wait to change the world with …

But I don’t. Turns out, I love smart, practical small business owners that stick to what works, because it works.

And building websites affords me an incredible opportunity to work alongside them. To help turn their scattered ideas and disorganized case studies into something that both they can be proud of and their customers can connect with.

As a business owner though, my goal from the start was to never be “one of them” …

One of the LinkedIn gurus or design snobs who treat websites and digital marketing like the holy grail of business success. I mean, as someone who is actually interested in marketing – if even I couldn’t stand them, then I had an inkling small business owners couldn’t either.

And, thus, I found my market: business owners who’ve outgrown their DIY website builders and don’t want to work with a gig-to-gig freelancer, but also don’t want a sales intern at a marketing agency shoving “lead generation” bundles down their throat for a 5% commission …

Business owners who just want to work with … another business owner. Crazy idea, right?

Which is why, over the years, I’ve put a disproportionate amount of my focus toward simplifying and demystifying the web design process; approaching it from the business owner’s perspective, rather than the web designer’s.

There’s this line I love from a seasoned businessman, talking about playing backyard football as a kid. He says, “Everyone always wants to do some big, fancy play – fake left, toss right, flick it back to the quarterback, go deep. They want it to be big and look sexy. But, really, what usually works best is just handing the ball to the fat kid and telling him to run up the middle.”

Which is exactly what I’m here for: to work with business owners who just want to hand the ball to the fat kid, and tell him to run up the middle.

And, for those of you who want a Hail-Mary of a website, I’m sure there are plenty of LinkedIn gurus who would be frothing at the mouth to work with you. ;)

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Work smarter, not harder.

I always did pretty well in school growing up, without having to try much. And the older I got, the more I learned to play the system, rather than the game: pick professors known for open-note exams, timing my study just enough to pull an 85% instead of cramming for a 95% that wouldn’t change my GPA, choosing electives I could sleepwalk through because they overlapped with things I’d already taken.

It got to the point where I almost took a sense of pride in gaming the system. So, when I got into business, I assumed it would be the same way; play the system, build automations, scale as quickly as possible.

On some level, I think everyone wants the underdog story of the scrappy genius who didn’t pay attention in school but uses his wits to win big.

And that approach works in Hollywood movies, and even in most merit-based systems. But it could not have been further from the truth in business. And, for years, every time I tried to skirt this cardinal rule, I was brutally reminded of its importance – whether that be trying to mass generate SEO pages, cold emails, or sales scripts.

Takeaway: working smarter is great, but working harder is much more important.

There are absolutely times where you need to move a giant, 500lb rock and it makes sense to evaluate every method possible; set up a pulley system, wedge a lever under it, outsource it to someone stronger.

But … there are also times where you just have to suck it up, and get strong enough to move 500lbs.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Cold email. But I’m (probably unreasonably) biased toward it because I love writing casual, honest copy.

I’ve been using cold email for years and, at first, I was pretty awful at it. I look back on so many early emails and cringe.

And I’ve tried pivoting plenty of times; cold calling, posting on LinkedIn, paid ads. None of them stuck.

But I think that’s my biggest takeaway from toughing it out with cold email for so long: pick an outreach method that you enjoy, because it probably won’t be ’til the hundredth iteration that you get it right.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://theshoredesigns.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-candiotti-04a63710b/