We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Taylor Widmann. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Taylor below.

Taylor, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

My career started in reality television, as I worked my way up the food chain to lead development editor, in charge of creating sizzles and pilots for a large production company. After 6 years there, I realized that I had hit a ceiling in terms of earning potential and acquiring new skills. Even though it was a secure, high paying job, I left to start my own business in the middle of winter, with a 4 month old baby, and bought a house I wasn’t quite sure I could afford. That first year is where most of my current gray hairs came from. 6 years later, it’s one of the best decisions I ever made. Betting on yourself and getting in the drivers seat is the best way to accelerate your learning, find out what you’re really made of, and (eventually) blow the roof of your salary cap. The business has changed a lot from when I started, but running my own post house has given me the freedom and flexibility to stay curious, try, fail, and follow opportunities as they drop out of nowhere (because that’s always where the best ones come from)

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.

The business has changed so much in the last 10 years! When I first started, television was booming, and there seemed to be unlimited appetites for new shows. Once that ship had sailed, I focused on branded content and YouTube preroll ads. Then, my core business transitioned to energy, travel, and healthcare clients post 2020 as those industries began to take off. Now, I focus primarily on healthcare marketing and long term social media campaigns. A key to my success has been paying attention to what clients repeatedly say they are missing, digging into the pain of what’s not working in the current model, then getting to work fixing it . Then, it’s much easier to spot that same pattern in other industries and sell more of the same solution.

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

This may be a bit emotional and psychological for a business story, but it has been the biggest unlock for me in the last year. I have always had a rock solid sense of self and was direct, kind, ambitious, and confident. These traits led to a wonderful personal life where I could always get what I wanted. BUT, I had a limiting belief that who I was in ‘real life’ would not work in my ‘work life.’ I believed that to be successful in business, I had to become someone else entirely. I had to be ‘good with numbers’ and ‘detached and professional’ and all sorts of other half baked ideas I’d picked up from movies and television. Because I didn’t have any real models of financial success in my life, I had invented one and decided that just wasn’t for me. Jump forward to December 2023, when I was invited to join a group of creative entrepreneurs for a year of group coaching (shout out Work Less Lab with Rich Webster). For the last 9 months, I’ve spent 2-4 hours a week on group calls with 20 other creative business owners, going over strategy, problems, pricing, etc. The biggest surprise to me was I was able to blow through the practical strategy pieces really quickly that had always intimidated me (the business stuff) and learn that the biggest thing holding us back as a group was our mindset and self perception. I learned that who I was in real life was the best person to be in business, and to take down that wall completely. It’s an ongoing and probably lifelong journey, but since ‘being myself’ on sales calls and in client meetings, I’m happier, less stressed, and make A LOT more money.

How’d you meet your business partner?

My business partner also happens to be my wife. I love the analogy that an army can’t have all soldiers, and it can’t have all generals. Sarah is the general. I love to get in the trenches, execute, get things done, really hammer a to do list. I’ll do something the wrong way and just apply more hard work. I don’t naturally step back and ask the bigger strategic questions. That’s really where Sarah comes in, figuring out what clients are the most profitable, who to let go, and where to steer the ship on a longer time horizon. Honestly without her guidance and constant input, I’d likely still be making TV sizzles for the same clients at the same rates. For anyone starting a small business, I strongly recommend finding someone with a complimentary (and different) way of seeing the world. Working smarter AND harder is quite a winning combo.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ghostposthouse.com/

Image Credits

Sarah Widmann