Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in advertising services but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Voltaire Pabustan, Founder of Kaizen Sigma, located in Los Angeles, CA, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

I own a digital marketing agency. We specialize in digital advertising, email marketing, and website creation. Our customers are a mix of local businesses, eCommerce brands, and high-ticket coaches/consultants.

Tell us about yourself

I realized I had a knack for advertising during my late college years. At first, it was simply playing around with ad manager dashboards out of curiosity and helping friends and family. Then, I was asked to help family members with running small campaigns for some of their own businesses. And things kept snowballing into bigger and bigger projects and clients as I got more practice and became more adept at media buying. My main motivation comes from my own family. There's no better feeling than to be able to provide for your children and wife and still have the time to be present with them at home at the end of every day. That, and also being able to help my staff by providing them with a steady income and a very welcoming environment for work. We still have staff members who have been with my agency ever since it started.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

Helping a lot of businesses with their own steady growth in sales and customers. We've taken one company that was spending around $8,000 per month on advertising and grew their business to the point they are now spending $100,000 per month in advertising. Other businesses we've worked with have experienced exponential growth to the point that they have had to hire additional staff and sometimes have told us to turn off the ads because the demand was so much.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

It is a grind and takes a lot of hard work. Anyone that says owning a business is easy has never owned a "real" business. There have been times when I've wanted to quit and shut everything down, but it's really not in my nature to work for someone else. On that note, I am now responsible for staff members and sometimes their families, who depend on steady income coming from work. It's a lot to handle when there are downtimes, which is inevitable, that can cause a lot of stress and worry. It always seems the work never stops, and, in the beginning, that is true. A lot of tasks get handled by the solopreneur, so there is a grind to it during the initial stages of business growth. Does it get easier? Somewhat, but I'll still say that there will always be work that needs to be done.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Don't be fooled by social media telling you that starting, running, and growing a business is easy. It's not. It takes a lot of grinding and pushing through tough times.
  2. Validate your offer with anyone you can before considering advertising. Whatever it is you sell or the service you provide needs to be accepted and purchased by someone that is not your friend or family. Get the offer validated and dialed in, and once you are able to sell it without paid advertising, then you'll be ready to jump into paid media for new customer acquisition. Not the other way around (Create a product, advertise, then hope for sales. That is a very dangerous business model and not sustainable).
  3. Have faith. In yourself, in God, in whatever you believe. Know that if you keep at it long enough and never quit, you'll get better skills, and the opportunities will start to come to you. The only way you'll actually fail is if you quit too soon.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://kaizensigmaco.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/voltairepabustan
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/voltairepabustan/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KaizenSigma
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/voltairep/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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