We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Joseantonio Guillen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Joseantonio, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

The term successful has been defined in different ways and modified to each individuals personal pathway and mission. Some can see one win as being successful and others may view all their failures as successful due to the lessons learned from it.

Successful businesses are measured from the ROI, their margins, customer satisfaction or even making their first sale.
Successful individuals can be seen as someone who has a lot of capital, resources and luxuries.

I believe that success is self defined, your success isn’t based on others or what material things are around you. DO you have your peace of mind, are you happy, are you having an impact on others in your community, are you able to balance your personal and professional life?

If you are improving everyday in your craft and are getting closer to your goals everyday then you can be seen as successful.
You can be proud of yourself due to the effort and work ethic you put in.

I think it takes everything, and then a little more to be successful and it’s still not guaranteed.
Success isn’t loyal to you, but we still chase after it.
Failure is only guaranteed if you don’t give it everything you have and a little more.

Joseantonio, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I started my business Just Get Goin’ back in 2020 during Covid, it was the last semester of my Bachelors in marketing and my professor asked me what my plan was after school. At the time I wasn’t sure, I wanted to work for a corporation, get a nice salary, benefits and learn as much as I can. I just wasn’t sure what business I could thrive in just based on my creativity and way I like to work. I like to go above and beyond for others and sometimes corporations want to be compensated for doing that type of work.
He said you are 22, are getting a marketing degree for The University of Kansas Business School and have worked in restaurants your whole life. Start there and improve restaurants in your business.

I started a Social Media Marketing company, with a main focus on restaurants. My task was to build a better website, create online ordering services, create their social media content, run digital ads, manage their social media, manage their community engagement, revamp their menus, update their drink menus, create graphics and retrain their staff in order to have more returning customers from the traffic that I was generating them.
I loved it, I loved doing it all but as a young entrepreneur I spread myself thin and also undervalued myself to my first clientele.

My first deal to build a website for a restaurant was 300$
It was 300$ to host the website on the platform…
Regardless I still did, it took me a week to build it.
I delivered, finished all the revisions and the moment after we launched the site, posted it on social media they had their first online order.

Shortly after they started generating more traffic and they referred me to another business. I charged more to that business to do the same and more for them. The first week after we signed the first contract I had a Tiktoker go to the business, create content about their food and it went viral. All three videos had a told 600K+ views. The restaurant went viral over night and brought so much traffic to the business that the owner called me, ask me what I did and I confidently said “What you hired me for”

But I had no idea what I did, I couldn’t put it into words, I had imposter syndrome because success shouldnt be that easy and I convinced myself that it was beginners luck…

Regardless we rode the wave, the first client wanted me to do the same thing for them and I ended up getting two 12 month contracts with these businesses to run their social medias, create content and run ads on Google and Facebook.

I learned a lot, I dedicated all my time for these businesses and overtime they took advantage of me, they didn’t respect my time or valued me. They always wanted to know what I was doing and how long it took me to do things, they wanted to cut corners on their food quality, they even asked me if they can pay me less even after making them an extra 15-45K a month on online order sales.

When they asked in October of 2021 to give them a hour by hour breakdown of what I do for their business I had to step away. They said that money is too tight to just be paying me without knowing what I do exactly and how they need to relocate their resources… I hope others can agree that contractors aren’t paid for just their time, its knowing where to hit the hammer and how hard.

The owner pulled up in a new 2022 Escalade she bought for her son and that’s when I came to terms that some people have great recipes and make amazing food but are horrible business owners..

I felt like I failed. Most of my clientele was word to mouth and when the news spread I lost them all.
I fell into a deep depression and wasn’t sure if what I was doing was good or if this was what I was supposed to be doing, ii didn’t know my next step and lost sight on myself and goals..

Fast-forward a few months later I move to Kansas City from Orlando, I start a job for a company to allow myself to have some stability and guarantee income. I start focusing on my mental health, my physical health, I start investing into my knowledge and craft more. I restart my business and after 3 weeks I get my first client, I felt happy, I was very proud of myself not only because I’m doing what I love again but because I learned a lot from my previous experience and will not let that occur again. I know my value and have been able to create boundaries to be success for then and for myself.

Im proud of the work I’ve done, I’m proud of the businesses I’ve helped grow past their potentials and I’m proud to say that all the business I worked with i left them better than how I found them..

To this day they still use my content, their social medias haven’t grown and they still used my online ordering platforms ive created.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

Remember that we are all human, remember that we have problems outside of work and that sometimes work is our escape. Make work a fun place to be, where your team is allowed to be creative, where they are able to make mistakes, learn, grow and want to thrive for more.

There is a higher chance that someone will work harder or do more for their leader if they feel appreciate, recognized, and valued. Why would anyone wanna work harder for a manager who only cares about deadlines and themselves. Our roles as managers is to MANAGE our teams, help them with the barriers they face and build a bridge together towards the solution.

You can be the one they all look to but it is important for them to have a leader among their peers, find each one of their strengths, compliment them and find ways to build confidence in the areas of improvement.

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

Just because you think you can help a business doesn’t mean that you are going to be able to help them. Some businesses are missing programs, systems, services, etc.. that you can offer then and that can truly make their business better.

I agree, you can and will improve their business, they are missing this piece that can double, triple their revenue but they rather just keep doing what they are doing. They like where they are, they are comfortable and they are making enough and are happy. It’s hard to grasp that, the opportunity of growth, the opportunity to generate more money like why do they not want it.

I had to learn that sometimes automation, optimization, and just more money isn’t what businesses seek. It hard to grasp it, I had a meeting with a business and created a plan for them to grow and increase their revenue and they were just not interested. They liked the plan they saw how it can work and how it can better their business but they just didn’t want to.

I had to learn that sometimes things are out of your control, its not always the pitch, the value, the price, you can be the best sales person in the world and you will still get a no. Learn that it’s part of life and keep going, learn and move forward.

It’s why there are thousands of agencies and thousands of businesses, you can help grow another business.

Lesson learn.

Contact Info:

• Website: justgetgoin.com
• Instagram: juiceantonio
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseantonio-guillen/

Image Credits
IG: @616verichrome