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

Khaner, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

I recently celebrated six months from announcing ArcSense’s launch and when celebrating that milestone, I reflected on everything ArcSense has accomplished since then:
– Starting with two clients and growing to 11
– Increasing monthly revenue by 10x
– Hiring our first part-time contractor
– And setting up much of the company’s internal infrastructure

How are we achieving this scale? Two guiding principles:
1) Focus on the core items that will drive your business — move everything else off your plate
2) Trust your instincts, jump in, and invest in yourself / the business

Focus:
I quickly learned I need to be doing three things on any given day: 1) Client work 2) Sales Outreach 3) My own marketing & PR. Any hour I spent fumbling with refreshing a word doc invoice was time I was wasting. How do I make that almost automatic, or make it something I barely don’t have to think about? More importantly, how do I apply that same train of thought to nearly everything else…which leads me to…

Trust, Jump, & Invest:
I love the invoicing example because it’s very “me” in that I was spending hours researching invoicing solutions, accounting software, payment processors, … Until one night (I do most/nearly all operational work at night) I realized how much time I was wasting trying to find the perfect solution at the best cost. Just going with a platform I initially liked the most has already saved countless hours that I clearly see being put back into Focus areas above.

These two are inextricably linked for me: focus on what I really need to do, (quickly) invest in outsourcing everything else. Repeat, repeat, repeat…

Khaner, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My career has spanned all areas of communications, where I’ve held leadership positions with global, publicly traded companies like Lenovo and Syneos Health, spearheaded the public affairs team at PR Daily’s 2022 Midsize Agency of the Year, was a reporter in the NC Capital Press Corp, and led communications for a startup on its way to an IPO.

What we do? ArcSense is a communications agency that helps businesses understand what purposefully telling their story can do for the company. Sometimes that’s public relations / connecting directly with reporters, sometimes that’s rewriting the way they talk about themselves on their website, brochures, and social media, and so much more!

I’m most proud of the impact our work has on our clients — from increased web traffic, social engagement, and most importantly, revenue — and how those clients have been huge advocates on our behalf.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

I started an LLC roughly 2.5 years ago called KLW Communications (while I was working full-time) where I mainly helped friends launch their own businesses. It wasn’t something I was looking to drive meaningful revenue with, as the main goal was to see if I wanted to be a small business owner.

I learned two invaluable lessons:
1) What not to do — From pricing, to hourly vs. retainer packages, and so much more, I quickly learned I needed to streamline how I was going to actually do the work, and that having three pricing models all with varying prices was a recipe for madness.

2) How to go to market — In early 2024 I had a lightbulb moment of how ArcSense could work. It became clear to me that given I was bootstrapping the company, I would be going after smaller companies / business owners and not targeting marketing teams with larger corporations. Understanding this helped me decode the “marketing speak” into services this audience clearly understands.

I more than likely would either have not launched ArcSense without my pre-existing side hustle, or it would not be going as well as it is today without those two years with KLW Comms!

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

What got you here, won’t keep you there.

For the first 15 years of my career, I prided myself on being the fastest writer, quickest to put together a story angle, and a team leader with growing numbers of direct reports. However, the more I was promoted, the less my job became focused on writing and storytelling, and became more spreadsheets, procurement, and Workday.

I was failing at my job because I wanted to keep all the creative, exciting parts of it and completely ignore the detail-focused steps and processes that must happen within global, publicly traded companies.

I learned to one: acknowledge my blind spots and two: embrace working with people that are so completely unlike me. Eventually, my most dreaded foes (project managers) became my most counted on allies. Their attention to things I saw as speed bumps was exactly what I needed and helped me be a better manager and colleague to others.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.arcsenseconsulting.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arcsense_comms
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/arcsense-communications