Mackenzie Kilshaw: Launching a Consulting Empire with Mackenzie Kilshaw Co

Have you ever faced a crossroads that not only changed your career but reshaped your entire future? That's the story I, Mackenzie Kilshaw, share with you today as I introduce Mackenzie Kilshaw Co., my new consulting firm that's set to transform the realms of sales, marketing, customer service, and leadership. 

With my father, Barry Firby, by my side, we peel back the layers of my professional journey, revealing the pivotal moments from early career roots in babysitting to leading the charge in major corporations like SaskTel and Hershey's. This episode isn't just about my story; it’s about the resilience and innovation that can emerge from life’s unexpected turns, and I'm here to guide you through it all.

Join us as we traverse the emotional and entrepreneurial landscape that defined my path, highlighting the life-altering impact of my mother's passing and the subsequent leap into the world of entrepreneurship. Opening physical storefronts, venturing into online businesses, and eventually diving into the tech sector—I've worn many hats and now bring this wealth of experience to the podcast. 

With Barry's poignant questions steering our dialogue, we extend an open invitation to all listeners who are seeking to reinvigorate their business or start a new venture. If you're hungry for insights and ready for a collaborative journey, let's connect and explore how Mackenzie Kilshaw Co. can elevate your business!

Let's make your brand unforgettable! 

Check out Mackenzie Kilshaw Co:  https://mackenzie-kilshaw.mykajabi.com/

Mackenzie Kilshaw Co. offers comprehensive business coaching, and consulting tailored to your needs.  

With Mackenzie's award winning entrepreneurial expertise in strategy, leadership, business development, branding, website development, social media management, SEO, sales and customer service training and more, clients receive personalized guidance to drive growth and success. 

Let's make your business unforgettable!

Chapters

• 1:19 Business Consulting With Mackenzie Killshaw
• 17:01 Entrepreneurial Journey and Sales Experience

Transcript

Shauna Foster: 1:19

Winning is your guide to making it in business. Join our award-winning host and entrepreneur, Mackenzie Kilshaw, and special guests in casual conversations that will educate and inspire you on your business journey. Winning will help you learn the hard lessons the easy way, with guidance from celebrated entrepreneurs and business leaders. It's fun, it's informative, it's winning.

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 1:44

Hello, welcome to Winning. I'm your host, Mackenzie Kilshaw, and my guest today is someone you guys have all heard from before. It's my dad, Barry Firby. Hi dad. Hey there, Mack, how are you? I'm really good. How are you?

Barry Firby: 1:57

I'm doing great.

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 1:58

Good, so I had to bring dad back. I actually have something that's extremely exciting and important to me that I've been working on for like three years now, but I find it's really boring for me to just sit here and talk to by myself. So I brought dad on to ask me a few questions, and I am very excited to introduce and to announce that I am starting my own consulting business called Mackenzie Kilshaw Co.

Barry Firby: 2:24

Mackenzie Kilshaw Co. What is

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 2:28

So good question, dad, what is it? It's going to be a consulting company that will focus on sales and marketing, customer service and leadership. So I will consult, coach, mentor, anyone that needs help in these areas, on ideas on where you want to go and how you're going to get there, and obviously, with all of those things, there will be additional services as well, which I'll chat about. But I think just really something that I've been thinking about for a long time and it's finally coming to life, so I couldn't be happier.

Barry Firby: 3:00

So you say all sorts of services?

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 3:04

So basically almost anyone could, you could jump in and help, but whatever stage they're needing help with? Yeah, exactly, if they're just starting out, or if they've been in business for a number of years and it kind of feels stuck, I can give them a hand for sure.

Barry Firby: 3:20

Oh, that's wonderful. By the way, I'm really excited to be a return guest.

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 3:25

Thank you, I think you're the only one, so there you go. Dad made a record.

Barry Firby: 3:28

So why are you starting this new business now?

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 3:33

So I'm starting it now. As I said at the beginning, I've been thinking about it for honestly, like years, probably since I sold my business, so three years in the making. Like everybody else, you know, you think about doing something and then something holds you back, whether it's fear, whether it's time commitment, whether it's family. It wasn't fear for me, because I've already done this, but it was more of a time commitment. So what I did was actually started with the podcast. So that's where I created Winning was to help people that were like me entrepreneurs, small business owners that need a hand, need ideas, need some guidance.

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 4:12

So I started with the podcast and I had a full time job. I worked for a tech company. I really enjoyed my job but, like many others on the podcast have shared as well and happened to me, I got laid off. There was a restructuring of the company. My job was terminated, which you know was kind of a hard thing to take it first because your initial thought is it's you and in this case it was a restructuring. So I knew it wasn't me, but this actually was the catalyst. It gave me the time now to develop the company, develop the programs and the courses and all of the offerings that I'm going to have and, honestly, I probably should have done it a long time ago. But here we are. I'm excited to get going.

Barry Firby: 4:53

Well, that's fantastic. So I guess the question would come to my mind if I'm the business person out there and I've been that person why should I pick you?

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 5:06

Yeah. So really I think there's a few reasons. I have a lot of education and a lot of experience and I understand where you are because I was you and I think that's really important to have work with someone that's been in your shoes. So I, 20 years ago, got my marketing degree and human resources degree from the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. This year I continued my education through York University, so I got a certificate on digital marketing, which, of course, when I was in school 20 years ago there was no such thing as digital marketing because there was nothing digital. So that just gave me a whole new, broader aspect and broader knowledge on everything digital right. So that's everything online and social media, that's search engine optimization, that's all of these things Google ads. So I really brushed up there and then recently I was very honoured to be accepted into Harvard Business School. So I'm actually taking a course there as well.

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 6:14

On leadership, and leadership is something that I've always really excelled in. I always kind of was a leader in the jobs that I had. I enjoy leadership, but I think it's one of those things that people actually forget that you might need a little training in that area. So business experience. I've got 20 over 20 years now, I guess a business experience after leaving school, I think, for me, though, it's the school of hard knocks. I was an entrepreneur for over 10 years. I shouldn't say was, I guess I still am but I'm also a full circle entrepreneur, so I created, ran and sold a business, so I've got experience in all of these aspects.

Barry Firby: 6:55

Okay, let's just take a couple of minutes here and let's dive into this whole aspect of what kinds of work. Why don't you take a couple of three minutes here and give me some scenarios that where let's say let's say I'm just starting, I'm not even open yet, but I got a bunch of great ideas and I'm the guy who thinks he can do it himself. What would you say to me?

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 7:26

Yeah for sure. Well, you were me 10 years ago where I thought, well, this, I've got all this knowledge, I've got all this experience, I'm going to open a business, everything's going to be great. And I think when you first start out, that's your first thoughts. You know what. There's going to be hard times, but you don't realize. First of all, you really can't do everything yourself. That's not even realistic. And when we all start out, we try, because a few things finances.

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 7:51

Usually when you start out, you don't have a lot of money to pay someone else. Also, you want to be involved in your business, right? So you really want to be hands on in all of the aspects of your business. But there comes a time, whether you're a solopreneur, as I'd say, just one person or if you have a team or building a team, maybe you've been in business for a long time, but there comes a time when you run into a difficult situation or a problem or something that you're not sure. Maybe it's just that you're kind of stagnant, like you haven't grown, you can't increase your revenues, you're not sure what to do. Or maybe you're like me before I took the digital marketing course and you think I know I should be on social media, but I don't even know where to start. For a lot of people, it's time. I know I should be doing this, but I don't have time to do it. So those are all reasons why you use a consultant, I think.

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 8:48

If I just going back a little bit, I know I kind of mentioned other services, but when you work with a consultant, you're really working with their strengths. To me, I'm really passionate and educated about customer service, sales and marketing and leadership. Those are my strengths. Those are things, if someone says I have a great staff but our customer service isn't that great, you bring in a consultant like me to help you improve your customer service. Really, what I'll do is assist you in creating strategies to reach your goals. I can help you make more money and work less, which I know for a lot of entrepreneurs is huge. I can help you increase your customer base.

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 9:30

There's all sorts of things that a consultant or someone like me can do. Also, something that I can do is help you to create and implement policies and procedures for your business. So, whether you're just starting out or you've been in business for a long time, a lot of businesses have been around for years and they don't have any policies or procedures. They just do what they've been doing for years and years. But when you actually have things in place and your team knows, your staff knows what's going on, you actually run a lot more efficient and what the efficiency comes things like revenue and growth. So that's really important.

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 10:10

Sales and customer service training for your team. I led a team of 10 people when I had my stores. I also have led teams in other jobs that I've had, and that leadership aspect is really important. Then, of course, marketing, so things like social media management, maybe it's website creation. Maybe you have a website, but it's not that great. People aren't really going to it. You don't know how to get them there, or they get to it and they bounce, they leave right away. So I can help you with your website. Then, of course, as I said before, leadership training and how you can become a more effective leader, because being an effective leader really will get you leaps and bounds further. I think a lot of people don't even really realize that.

Barry Firby: 10:55

Okay, so I'm going to give you my the second entrepreneur guy that I'm coming to you. I already have a business and it's doing fairly well. I have four or five employees and I'm thinking it's going well, but there's some things that I think could be better. So I mean you can sort of jump in and are you willing to customize an approach on what their individual needs might be?

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 11:26

100% and in all reality, everything is customizable because it really is for your business. So if you're an entrepreneur, small business owner, if you feel stuck or you don't know what to do, if you really aren't even sure what your goal should be, you know a lot of people like will, like you just said, your person. Yeah, things are going great. What should I work towards? Or what? Something that I could do to increase my revenue or work less? As I said, the glory of working with me Consultant is that you don't need to have employees in all these areas. So maybe you don't have a whole marketing team or marketing team at all, right, and you work with a consultant to do your marketing for you.

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 12:11

And maybe someone that's been in business for a long time didn't really do a lot of marketing because they started out, they are established, and you know they've got regular customers and whatnot, but now they're feeling a little stagnant. So maybe a boost in your marketing is going to bring you those new clients or freshen you up. Maybe to rebrand. Maybe you say you know what our brand is, dated it's, we need a refresh, we need, we need younger people, we need people that have never heard of us, just to get to know who we are, and so those are really things I can help with.

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 12:44

The glory of it being a consultant is that I can help you with what you need when you need it, right. So, yes, so that's the thing like if you need help this year with marketing, fantastic, and next year maybe you call me back again and say you know what? Now my team needs sales training because we've got all these new clients coming in. We need sales training. Oh wait, we also need customer service training because there's all these new people, right, and you, you can work with me on a contract basis, so that you're not paying me all the time If you don't need me, right, and that's really a great thing about consulting.

Barry Firby: 13:20

That's really good. I'm going to give you one more scenario, and that is that is that I've I've been in this business for for a long time and I've done either myself or my spouse and I we operate a family business and we are getting to where we're getting to where we're we're not burning out, but we're we're doing so many darn things and we would like to be able to step away for a weekend down and then, or whatever, we're not. We're not asking, you know, Mackenzie Kilshaw Co to come in and run the business, but but what can you help them with? To take some, take some loads off and automate some, some of that, some of that business that they're actually spending way too much personal time on.

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 14:11

Yeah, I don't want to say it happens to everybody, every entrepreneur or small business owners being through that you you're working on a lot of times it's just you, right, especially if it's a family business. Just you might have some employees, but you know they don't know how to do what you do necessarily. So, going back to some of those policies and procedures, maybe it's just a procedure that you make so that someone else can step into that role when you're not there and do it, whether that's a staff member or whether that's something that you pay a consultant to do, depending what it is, obviously. But the more things it's 2024 the more things that we can get automated and automatic. And, as I always like to say, my ultimate goal is make money while you sleep, right. So maybe that's you've never had an online store before and by having an online store, you could actually just close your store front for for a couple of days to take a break. You will be closed for these days, but you still have sales coming in online. You're not even there, but when you get back Monday, guess what? You pack up all those orders and you ship them out.

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 15:17

So there's different things that that you can do, and when we're in our own business, we're in our own business, we don't often see other things that are potentials for us. I met with someone last week and I gave her a few ideas and she's like I never thought of that before and I said well, of course not, because you haven't seen kind of the broader aspect of business. You see what's in your business, right, and so that's the great thing about consultants someone like me is that we'll look at your business as a whole and give you some ideas of some alternatives or additional things that you could do or provide or automate or whatever it happens to be, so that it makes your life easier. And at the end of the day, when you're an entrepreneur or small business owner, you also have a family, you also have a personal life, you also have friends. There's the other things you want to do. So if we get it so that you can work less and make more money, that is the ultimate win.

Barry Firby: 16:18

That is indeed the ultimate win. Hey, listen, I, I know all the success that you have had in in a lot of different fields and I think, I think it would be advantageous, because you know, you know I would. I would say, well, what kind of people, what kind of people would you want to hire? But maybe get, why don't you just give us a little bit of a background on some of the different career opportunities that you've had, so that so that our listeners can say, can relate to you and say, oh well, I didn't know she knew about this, or I didn't know she knew about that.

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 16:56

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point, dad, I think if I really want to roll back the truck here. I started babysitting when I was about 12 and working with children. You sure learn a lot of patience and, honestly, ideas, right, how do you keep kids entertained? So that, I think, really got my idea aspect flowing. I worked in the service industry. So when I was in university, each I actually managed a bar and restaurant and so I worked there. So I have a lot of service experience. I was a bartender, a waitress, a cook, a cleaner. I kind of did it all there.

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 17:36

When I did that through university, I worked at The Bay, which is a department store, and I actually sold cosmetics. So sales to me, sales are sales if you're a good salesperson you can sell anything. It's your sales technique, right, that really matters. And I I only worked at The Bay for about six months, but I was one of the top sales people in The Bay and I think that's because I really sold the proper way with features and benefits. So call me up, I'll tell you all about features and benefits. I'll give you some sales training.

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 18:10

But when I left The Bay I moved to SaskTel, which is the provincial telephone company at the time. I started there, honestly, was probably the worst job you can have was direct sales. So I was cold calling people and trying to sell them everything from long-distance plans to internet to TV services. Once again, I was one of the top sales people in our team and because I sold people what they needed, I didn't sell them anything that wasn't going to benefit them. I Love SaskTel. It was a great experience. But I kind of was ready to move onto something. There I worked a lot of evenings and weekends. I was 25 years old. I didn't want to work on the weekend, I wanted to go out and have fun. So I actually moved into another sales role and which was with Hershey chocolate and candy. So I sold chocolate bars and Twizzlers all sorts of fun things. I handled all corporate clients. So Walmart, Superstore, Shoppers Drug Mart really big, really big stores is what I was in charge of. Again, I was a top sales person and leadership there as well, and same thing like Hershey.

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 19:27

As people know my story, they know my mom passed away. Suddenly I wanted to do my own thing and that's when I started my stores. So I started one store in Saskatoon. Two years later I started another store in Regina. Absolutely love those stores couldn't have had a better experience as an entrepreneur.

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 19:46

But I got married not but, I guess I got married. My husband and stepson lived in another city, so I was doing what I called the Bermuda Triangle, driving kind of around in circles, and I knew I couldn't sustain that, and so I was fortunate enough that my two spaces two different groups took over my leases and I was able to leave. I run my store online, so I completely built and marketed an online store, so I have a lot of experience there. And then I actually sold that. So I was a full circle entrepreneur at that time.

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 20:23

When I, after I sold, I worked for a tech company, so I know quite a bit about tech too, and I was, I started out doing partnerships, so I ran our Influencer Program. I have a lot of experience in influencer marketing. I ran our partnerships program, so working with different companies and different brands and how you can work together and then I actually moved to the Head of Customer Success and Sales, so I ran the team that did customer service and sales there. And, of course, as I was doing that, I did the podcast as well, and podcast is such a different life that I absolutely love it. Lets me share all these messages to the world.

Barry Firby: 21:05

It's really exciting. I'm going to squeeze in one more question here.

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 21:09

Okay, do it dad.

Barry Firby: 21:10

That is, how do they get a hold of you for information?

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 21:14

Yeah, so obviously I'm gonna be on social media. I'm gonna be on Facebook and Instagram @MackenzieKilshaw Co and my website is it's just my name MackenzieKilshaw. com That's the best way to see me, the best way to get a hold of me. You'll see what I offer. I'm gonna have free downloads, courses. You can get my contact info if you want to work with me. I cannot wait to work with people. Dad, thank you so much for being on and asking me the questions. This is just so exciting for me and I think once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur and I'm back.

Barry Firby: 21:46

Good night.

Mackenzie Kilshaw: 21:48

Thanks, pops. We'll see you later. And for everybody listening, pop me a message. I'll be happy to let you know where you can find out more and we'll see you on the next episode. Thanks for listening to Winning. Be sure to subscribe to get all of our new episodes. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about on social media and leave a rating and review wherever you listen to winning. To catch all of the latest from us, you can follow winning podcast on Instagram @winning_ podcast, Facebook at Winning Podcast and on Twitter @winning pod. Winning was created and is produced by me, Mackenzie Kilshaw music created by Summer Firby, editing by Seth Armstrong. Special thanks to Shauna Foster for voicing our opening and, of course, a huge Thank you to this episode's guests. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you on the next episode.