We were lucky to catch up with Troy Sandidge recently and have shared our conversation below.

Troy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. It’s easy to look at a business or industry as an outsider and assume it’s super profitable – but we’ve seen over and over again in our conversation with folks that most industries have factors that make profitability a challenge. What’s biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?

The biggest challenge to profitability in the industry of startups / marketing agencies / smbs / tech is the lack of sustainability. Many go after hyper growth, raising their profile super fast whether through investors, big pr, and big revenue coming in, but don’t build the systems, implement a strategy, and lay a foundation where they are truly sustainable which would allow them the ability to pursue great feats without having massive crashes and big swings that could jeopardize their entire business.

There’s an art and a science to true growth. Too many are growing too rapidly, reinvesting all of their earnings into boosting their growth even more while the foundation of the business is holding on by chewing gum and duct tape and could break at any moment, leaving them to break into more pieces than Humpty Dumpty. The reality is right now, we need to focus on sustainability first and scalability second.

More thoughts can be found here: https://youtu.be/B_lzc_fIlks and the description covers most in the synopsis as well.

I also talk about this in this interview also, there’s pull quotes from what I said as well:

Social Chatter Episode 344: New Tools For LinkedIn Creators For Greater Engagement Opportunities

Troy, 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?

Troy Sandidge is an award-winning growth strategist who creates sustainable strategies, systems, and solutions that scale revenue rapidly.

Troy is known as the Strategy Hacker® for his fluency in various disciplines of strategy from go-to-market, demand gen, sales enablement, community development, social media, branding, marketing, and digital, incorporating sociology, psychology, and anthropology generating over $150 Million in client revenue.

Troy is the host of the Webby nominated, Top 100 Marketing Business Podcast iDigress which is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network, author of the book Strategize Up: The Simplified Blueprint To Scaling Your Business, and the founder and CEO of Strategy Hackers.

He is also the COO at No Middle and created the LinkedIn Authority Writing System.™

Working with B2Bs, Startups, SMBs, Tech, SaaS, NGOs, and Fortune 1000, the top three things Troy focuses on is:

1. Developing Go-To-Market Strategies for Growth Acceleration
2. Creating Content Engines for B2B Tech Firms to Increase Authority
3. Building Sustainable Systems to Scale Revenue

Recognized as a Top 100 Marketing Leader, Troy has been featured in Business Insider, Yahoo News, ABC, CBS, NBC, HuffPost, Atlanta Wire, CNN, SEMRush, Inc Magazine, HubSpot, Agorapulse, among others.

He is an acclaimed internal speaker who has spoken at events featuring Oprah Winfrey, Spike Lee, Gary Vaynerchuk, Cynt Marshall, Will Ferrell, Dharmesh Shah, Sarah Paiji Yoo, & Hasan Minhaj. Stages include INBOUND, DigiMarCon, Podcast Movement, Creator Expo, SMWL, Digital Summit, among others.

A Chicago native from a blue-collar family, Troy’s mission is to eliminate the complexity of growing a business by empowering businesses to harness the power of strategy to increase their growth to create the lives they want to live and make a bigger impact within their communities. Troy especially wants to elevate BIPOC, marginalized, and small businesses forward!

Here’s additional info on me regarding my various hats: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6948666872082964480/

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Your story identifies your passions and serves as the foundation for future content. It also evokes emotion, ignites curiosity, grabs attention, and locks people in. Once you have your story down, you’ll be able to move forward in creating your brand. Let me share a brief story of mine as an example:

I had three brain surgeries that made me appreciate life and gave me a strong determination to make an impact bigger than myself. My mother died when I was seven, so I can empathize with those who have suffered great loss and want to help as many people as I can navigate through loss to experience great joy again. I’ve fought to break ceilings as a Black professional, so I know how to be resilient. I aim to help others learn from my obstacles and experiences so they can succeed.

I’ve been a fighter my entire life. I was born three months premature, weighing only two pounds, two ounces.
That’s less than a Yukon potato. I’ve dealt with various levels of challenges, obstacles, and struggles simply because of my African American identity in high school, college, and still throughout my professional career.

In 2015, after dealing with an unfortunate accident at a restaurant, I was told I had hydrocephalus (excess fluid in the brain), which led to three sequential brain surgeries from 2015 to 2017. Each time, I worried whether I’d awake the same Troy with my creativity, intelligence, drive, and ambition. My first surgery, in 2015, was exactly two months before my wedding. It was a miracle that I survived all the “what ifs” to make my beautiful fiancée my wife. Problems after that surgery led to a second surgery the following summer that I underwent while still doing my job.

Three months after my third surgery, two weeks before my birthday in January 2017, I was laid off from a job and resorted to irregular gigs while stocking shelves for Amazon then sorting packages for FedEx to make ends meet. In two different periods, I worked three different jobs in one day for months. During those six-and-half months of seemingly endless days, I submitted 2,318 applications and was rejected 2,318 times. You learn a lot about yourself when you face a constant amount of rejection. You can feel bombarded with a myriad of setbacks. As you can imagine, that can weigh heavily on a person who just wants to use their talents to provide for their family. But I learned to bounce back up and continue applying. I asked a good friend from Twitter, Ginain Grayes, how she dealt with fatigue when quitting wasn’t an option. She said, “Give yourself permission to live in that emotion for a moment. Cry. Scream. Be angry. Just know you can’t stay there. You have to get back up.” Every valley has its mountain, and winter eventually turns into summer. One December night, around 9:00 PM, the phone rang. A stranger who liked a LinkedIn post wanted to interview me to rebuild their creative agency. Twenty-six hours later, I was hired. That was the beginning of my newfound success in digital marketing. The rest is history. Perseverance is key.

Those events were my cup for me to bear. Saying they were difficult would be an understatement. Years after, I looked back and appreciated the lessons of tenacity, resilience, and appreciation I gained from those experiences, which I constantly optimized my approach accordingly. If sharing my story helps you through your difficulties to achieve your dreams, it’s worth it.

• • • • • • • • • • • •

In 2019, I spoke to students at Northwestern Medicine for the All of Us Research Program on the art of not being defeated, during which I mentioned my Four Rs to become a rejection rock star:
• Be resilient. You can’t be resilient without facing difficulties.
• Be resourceful. You can’t be resourceful until things fail.
• Be radiant. You can’t show your radiance until you’re thrown into darkness.
• Be real. You can’t be real without accepting your reality.

It’s hard out there! We’ll fail more times than we’ll succeed. Hang on. Hardships toughen us. Here’s an acronym I made specifically for when you hit hard times. Tell yourself I will “A.D.A.P.T. — Always Do All PossibleThings.”

I remember watching The Lego Movie for the first time, after laying in a hospital bed with my wife the day of my first brain surgery, and hearing Emmet’s inspiring words. He said, “You are the most talented, most interesting, and most extraordinary person in the universe. And you are capable of amazing things. Because you are special. And so am I. And so is everyone. The prophecy is made up, but it’s also true. It’s about all of us. Right now, it’s about you. And you … still … can change everything.”

I think back to every obstacle, challenge, and adversity I faced. I recall every time I failed, every time things just “didn’t work out.” Rejection hurts. Setbacks suck. And taking a loss is never easy. Many times, it can be survival of the fittest. But if the pandemic has shown us anything, we are more resilient than we think.

You learn from every high and every low.

I know it’s been hard (still is) for many (most). Facing the unknown is stressful. Being expected to just get back up after getting knocked down (maybe even knocked out) is hard. But not getting back up is even worse. Don’t let the past win. I learned I could get knocked out and still be a champion in the making. You can too. No matter your adversity, focus on solutions, and you’ll move forward. Always remember that the struggle you are in today is developing the strength you need tomorrow.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

“If you build it they will come” is one of the biggest lies ever told in business.

If you want to be SEEN and HEARD now and throughout all of 2022…

Focus more on DISTRIBUTION of the content you are creating.

Quality does NOT MEAN ANYTHING if no one sees it.

Oh and another thing, stop equating the amount of time, amount of effort, amount of energy, amount of money spent on something to determine if it is of “high quality”.

Your audience determines that, not you.

People out here with just a phone getting more views, more likes, more engagement, more brand awareness, and more money than your 80 hour high-cost produced video.

If your audience resonates and converts better with the latter approach awesome.

But for many who don’t know what even resonates with their audience (if they even know who and where they are in the first place) and are in need of visibility, conversions, and growth and are strapped by limited resources, time, and money when it comes to content creation…

You better learn how to distribute a piece of content at least 10 different ways.

The more you distribute, the more data you’ll get to determine the quality of your content and make adjustments accordingly.

You want to be discovered? Hired? Funded?

You want new clients? Jobs? Opportunities?

You want more press? Features? Guest appearances?

Then you need people to see you, hear you, watch you, and connect with you!

And they only can do that through adequate, efficient content distribution.

Does quality stop with how the content looks and feels? Or is that just where quality begins and it really stops when it boosts your brand authority and makes you money?

The quality of a car isn’t determined by how long they took to make it or the features. The quality is determined by how all of that makes the end user feel, does it make a better experience for them, does it hold up while driving and daily life use.

In the same way, your content quality is determined by how well it resonates and helps the end user but also by how well it actually hits your KPIs, OKRs, and awareness or conversion goals.

We get discouraged that one post doesn’t draw a half a million views, a thousand comments, and at least 100 customers or clients off of it.

And it was only seen by 100 people and 95% only know of you but aren’t your ideal audience who will buy from you.

So therefore we must distribute more and often to get our numbers up to see through the volume where is the hidden value we need to focus our content on in the first place.

Distribute. Distribute. Distribute.

The backstory is, I used to think the quality of a video, website, proposal, presentation deck (of itself) would be enough to grow and scale my business. Quality over quantity I would say religiously. But one point it hit me what I’m doing isn’t working. I did an assessment of my time and energy and correlated all of that to ROI. It was terrible. The moment I simplified everything, spent less on fluff and more on doing things that matter which were driving the goals of A.R.C. — awareness, revenue, and community — that’s when things changed. A big part of that happened when I would post consistently content that resonated to my ICP that aligned what what I could do and was passionate about. I spent less on time on making it perfect and just found how many ways I could distribute a solid thought, result, question, answer, response, insight, etc. And it changed everything for me. I did in two years more than what I did the previous nine years.

Contact Info:

• Website: FindTroy.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/FindTroy
• Linkedin: Linkedin.com/in/FindTroy
• Twitter: Twitter.com/FindTroy
• Youtube: YouTube.com/FindTroy
• Other: Podcast: iDigress.fm Webby Nomination: https://winners.webbyawards.com/2022/podcasts/general-series/creativity-marketing/212696/idigress-with-troy-sandidge