And we’re back from our break with a great interview!
In today’s episode, we are talking to Jaee Blue, CEO and Founder of VBA!
About Jaee: Jaee is the Founder and CEO of Venture Beyond Aspirations (VBA), a company dedicated to helping entrepreneurs turn ideas into structured, scalable businesses. Through VBA’s platform, Jaee has built an ecosystem that bridges the gap between education and execution, guiding founders through clear stages of growth from clarity to expansion. With a background in technology and business operations, Jaee specializes in aligning the right systems, tools, and strategy to help early-stage and growing entrepreneurs avoid common pitfalls and build with intention. Under her leadership, VBA has expanded into multiple offerings, including its Core membership platform, creative services, and school-based solutions through Core Scholar. Jaee is passionate about empowering founders to take ownership of their time, ideas, and future. Her work focuses on creating practical, results-driven solutions that simplify the entrepreneurial journey and drive long-term success.
Jaee’s plugs: https://www.vbaspire.com/
Contact Jaee: https://www.instagram.com/iamjaeeblue/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaeeblue/
The Marketing Gateway is a weekly podcast hosted by Sean in St. Louis (Sean J. Jordan, President of https://www.researchplan.com/) and featuring guests from the St. Louis area and beyond.
Every week, Sean shares insights about the world of marketing and speaks to people who are working in various marketing roles – creative agencies, brand managers, MarCom professionals, PR pros, business owners, academics, entrepreneurs, researchers and more!
The goal of The Marketing Gateway is simple – we want to build a connection between all of our marketing mentors in the Midwest and learn from one another! And the best way to learn is to listen.
And the next best way is to share!
For more episodes: https://www.themarketinggateway.com
Copyright 2025, The Research & Planning Group, Inc.
TRANSCRIPT:
Sean Jordan (00:08)
Welcome to the marketing gateway. I’m Sean and Saint Louis and today we have Jay Blue, the founder and CEO of Venture Beyond Aspirations, also known as VBA. And I met Jay at the MDMC a few weeks ago ⁓ in the Entrepreneuriali and was just so excited about what they’re doing because this is an organization and Jay’s going to talk about this. That’s offering counseling to. ⁓
small businesses or founders or people that want to grow their their business in a way that they need some advice. They need some help. Maybe they’re a little beyond what the Small Business Association can offer, or they just need somebody to kind of walk them through the steps of what they need to do. And they have this awesome framework that they’re using. They have this great platform that they use that integrates both human advice and AI, and you’re going to hear all about it in this episode. But I.
I love this because as marketers, you one of the things that we often have to do is we often have to think about, well, you know, how do we get beyond just talking about what we do and actually make sure that people actually want to buy what we have to offer? And that’s a big problem. That’s something that you can’t easily solve without really going through the steps. And that’s one of the things that VBA really helps their clients with. So you’re going to get to hear from Jay. She is awesome. And here you go.
Sean Jordan (01:33)
Well, welcome to the marketing gateway. I’m Seanan St. Louis and today I’ve got with me Jay Blue. Now Jay is somebody I met a couple weeks ago at the Midwest Midwest Digital Marketing Conference. It’s a mouthful and I was I was very excited because Jay was part of the entrepreneur alley and of course we already had a couple of guests on from there and I was just excited to see you standing out in front of your stand talking about what you’re doing and we’re going to talk about some of that today. So Jay, welcome to the show.
Jaee Blue (02:01)
Thank you, super excited to be here.
Sean Jordan (02:03)
Wonderful well we always begin by having guests tell me something surprising that I don’t know it could be anything you like to share so go for it.
Jaee Blue (02:13)
Yeah, so since it’s Mental Health Awareness Month, something personal I like to share is that ⁓ I lost two of my childhood friends to suicide. ⁓ Both of them impacted who I became in two very different ways. One taught me how to be brave in a big world, even though I was younger. And then the other taught me the importance of laughter and just smiling and always being myself. And I think experiences like that.
Shape how you lead people how you treat others and most of all, you know how seriously you take purpose and impact in general
Sean Jordan (02:52)
I’m so sorry for the loss of your friends, but I’m so glad that you’re able to take something away from the impact they left on you, because that’s really great. we’ve been celebrating Mental Health Awareness Month all month here at the Marketing Gateway. It’s very important to us too, so thank you. Yeah. Well, you know, in this series on the Marketing Gateway, we’re really focused on St. Louis area. So tell me how you came to live and work in the St. Louis area.
Jaee Blue (03:05)
Awesome.
Yeah, so fun fact, I was actually born and raised in the St. Louis area, ⁓ primarily around Florissant and Hazelwood. So this community has always been a part of my story. ⁓ Actually, a lot of my entrepreneur journey and professional growth happened here as well. So just being able to now build something that supports founders in this region specifically feels like it’s just very full circle for me.
Sean Jordan (03:44)
That’s fantastic. And what’s something about the St. Louis area you wish everyone knew?
Jaee Blue (03:49)
I’m to have to say people underestimate how much talent and innovation and resilience that really exists here in St. Louis. There’s a lot of founders, creatives, and just a lot of folks just building very impactful things. So, ⁓ I love the ecosystem here and I just think it deserves a lot more recognition.
Sean Jordan (04:14)
I totally agree. In fact, one of the things that I get the most frustrated about is not the talent well we have here. We have a ton of people that are amazing. We’re just not good at talking about it.
Jaee Blue (04:23)
Yes. Yes,
talk about it. Yes, yes.
Sean Jordan (04:28)
That’s that’s part of what we
have to do and you know that’s part of why I started the show and part of I’m glad to have you on it because we’re to talk about what you’re doing and what you’re doing is supporting these folks that are going out and doing these amazing things and coaching them and helping them to be better at ⁓ launching and starting and scaling a small business. So let me just jump right in because we like I said we met a few months ago or not months ago weeks ago at the Midwest Digital Marketing Conference and you’re in the entrepreneurs alley and you had this really cool service that you’d set up.
Jaee Blue (04:48)
Okay.
Sean Jordan (04:56)
And I was intrigued, so I stopped and talked to you for a little while. Tell me a little bit about how you founded Venture Beyond Aspirations, or VBA, and what you’re hoping to do with it.
Jaee Blue (05:05)
huh.
Yeah, of course. So VBA officially launched in 2023, but we’ve been doing a lot of behind the scenes way earlier. So I’ve been involved in entrepreneurship and business since around 2018. We primarily focused on music business and creative industries, media and branding.
⁓ I also worked as a television advertising account executive which gave me some experience in just helping businesses, improving visibility, ⁓ customer engagement, branding, and strategy. So along the way, I just kept seeing talented founders struggle because they lack operational structure. ⁓ Maybe they didn’t have the systems or the guidance. So… ⁓
I just saw firsthand how confusing entrepreneurship can be, especially for people early on. ⁓ I watched family members spend hundreds of dollars on things like an LLC, ⁓ basic setups and business services without really understanding what they actually needed. And that experience stayed with me along the way because I realized a lot of founders aren’t lacking ambition. They’re lacking guidance.
clarity and trustworthy operational support.
Sean Jordan (06:31)
You know, I went to business school and you know, got a degree in this stuff and I still when I got in the actual world of running a business like I didn’t know how to do a lot of things. I’m still learning ⁓ in the role I’m in now and I’ve been running this business for the last few years, so I think that’s part of the difficulty of being a founder or being someone who has a skill and you just want to make a business out of it is that the training that’s out there. It trains you how to think maybe, but it doesn’t train you how to do and so you need you have to learn right?
Jaee Blue (06:57)
Yes Yes,
yes, yes, yes and I I get it so when I was building like myself I realized there’s a lot of people like you said teaching Motivation and theory but not enough, you know actually helping the founders actually implement and operate and that’s actually just again where VBA came from today Our ecosystem is designed to help early stage service-based founders
build the business side to match the skill they already have. ⁓ Again, that’s kind of through four stages, clarity, validation, foundation, and growth. And each stage focus on helping founders become more operational, stable, ⁓ scalable, and very, very intentional. I’m real big on being intentional.
Sean Jordan (07:46)
So you mentioned those four stages, and I know I talked to you about those before. let’s unpack those a little bit. So start out with clarity. So what are we thinking about at that stage?
Jaee Blue (07:55)
Yes, clarity. We want to help you be clear and validate before aggressively scaling. ⁓ We want to make sure you understand exactly what stage you’re in, how to move on to the next stage and actually grow.
Sean Jordan (08:15)
Okay, and then the next level is what comes after that.
Jaee Blue (08:19)
Foundation so make
sure at that at that point you have Well actually before the foundation is validation We want to make sure you validate what you have so we want to make sure you’re not just going around ⁓ Selling things and not actually validating that people actually want to buy it I see that a lot you think you got something you think you got it and then realize man
I don’t really have it. No one wants to buy this. This was really good in my head, but I couldn’t figure out how to throw it out there or how to kind of put it all together. And then the next one’s foundation. Once you got that foundation, you got people buying and people attracted and a steady flow of customers. We want to make sure that you have the systems in place ready to actually handle that. ⁓
whether that’s the point of sale or your CRM or how you actually gather the data. We want to make sure that’s a smooth process because it’s one thing to have something, someone buys it and now you’re tracking and the next thing you know, people are like, hey, my order’s coming in late. And you’re like, ⁓ I mean, I got it. It’s on my list. But you’re impacting the customer experience. And it’s all about making sure that foundation is right.
so that when you’re ready for the next stage, growth, we can easily scale something like that. We get you investor ready, get you ready to get ⁓ things like the, there’s so many programs out there that give you grants and loans and accelerator programs. ⁓ We wanna make sure that you’re ready for that type of growth and ready to scale.
Sean Jordan (10:02)
Absolutely, and you know one of the things that a lot of early stage founders kind of have a problem with is that because they don’t know they haven’t done this before they make a lot of mistakes and mistakes are good because they teach you things right but there are mistakes that can also be really catastrophic that can really harm your business for the long term so what’s one mistake that you see early stage founders consistently make when they’re trying to grow their business?
Jaee Blue (10:12)
Yes.
yeah, okay, so one of the biggest mistakes I see is founders trying to scale visibly before building operational structure. Now let me kind of break down what that means. They focus heavily on getting clients or marketing harder, but behind the scenes, there’s no onboarding system, no communication structure, workflow consistency, or an operational foundation.
Growth without infrastructure usually creates chaos. So a lot of businesses don’t fail because the idea was bad. They fail because the system behind the business couldn’t support the growth. And that’s the biggest thing that I kind of see.
Sean Jordan (11:13)
Yeah, it’s you know, even a business like mine. I’ve been doing this for 17 years. The business has been around for 43. I’m sorry to say we don’t have a good onboarding system right now. It’s too personal. It’s related to what the principles doing. We should be better at that. We don’t have a good CRM system in place. We’ve tried it. It was hard to put in and we got busy with other things. We need to get that in place and there’s a lot of things that even if you’ve been doing this for a long time like you know you should be doing them, but.
Jaee Blue (11:39)
Yes!
Sean Jordan (11:41)
You’re
not because you’re busy. You’re trying to serve the clients or the customers and in my case is clients and you’re you’re you’re so focused on that. You’re so focused on just trying to grow that part of the business that you don’t think about. I have to make it easier for the customers to actually be able to interface with us. And so I I love what you’re saying because I think it’s something that I can feel so much in terms of the kind of work that I do, let alone when I’ve worked in retail or you know other types of management that I’ve been in. It’s it’s hard sometimes to put those things in place before you.
Try to get off running with the thing you want to do.
Jaee Blue (12:12)
A ⁓ lot of people really don’t really just don’t think about it. ⁓ Like you said, you’re busy trying to run a company and you’re not really thinking about all of the extra pieces, the moving pieces that come with that. But you know, that’s where we come in and kind of help out with that.
Sean Jordan (12:29)
That’s fantastic. You know, another thing that we often hear ⁓ more on the academic side, you because I teach ⁓ is that cash flows are one of those things that are really, really hard for new businesses. And I’m sure you have to counsel clients on that as well. What do you tell them about cash flows and how to be ready for shocks to the system?
Jaee Blue (12:48)
say keep a clean book of business ⁓ keep your data clean I feel like that’s the biggest thing that you can do as ⁓ an entrepreneur even if you’re a medium-sized small size it’s just you if it’s just you working and doing all this stuff on your own start you know keep yourself in order ⁓ and a good book of business will help do that ⁓ and then
You don’t need enterprise level systems immediately. But once the demand comes, you know, just being consistent and make sure you got some type of structure.
Sean Jordan (13:28)
Yeah, or that you’re on a pathway where if you need to upgrade to enterprise level that you’re ready for it, which that just means having a lot of times a good system and some discipline. I mean, could be it could be an Excel spreadsheet if you do it right, you know, so. Well, that that’s that’s awesome. So a lot of people who start businesses, they’re really good at doing things. They’re not as good at building them for scale. So I always think about like somebody who really likes to cook or bake like they could start a restaurant or a bakery. They’re good at that part.
Jaee Blue (13:40)
Yes, yes.
Sean Jordan (13:56)
When it comes to actually having a business where they actually have to make the things available like you know they gotta they gotta make sure they have the right products. They gotta make sure that the right consistency. They gotta make sure that the right price. They’re not good at that stuff because they’re good at the skill. They’re not necessarily good at the business part. So at what point should a founder focus on building systems and structure instead of just trying to get clients?
Jaee Blue (13:59)
Yes!
Yes.
again that’s much earlier than most people think. I say if everything depends entirely on the founder manually doing everything the business is not scalable yet. So you would want to start implementing systems if you are you’re taking the cash payments you’re doing the delivery you’re also making the product you’re also doing the cold calls.
Sean Jordan (14:22)
Mm-hmm.
Jaee Blue (14:47)
It starts to get overwhelming. That includes onboarding, communication, scheduling, workflows, customer management, ⁓ operational consistency. So just making sure you’re not doing everything and everything is not on you.
Sean Jordan (15:05)
Yeah, and you know when you’re a small business, it’s hard to not let everything be on your shoulders because A, you’re usually kind of resource constrained, right? You can’t run out and just hire people even if you have the money because it’s hard to find the right people to do the right jobs. And then you also have the problem where ⁓ you’re moving at 100 miles an hour. so anytime you take time out to do anything different, that means you have to slow down and lose some of that momentum. when you’re counseling, ⁓
entrepreneurs or small businesses or founders. What are you telling them about getting those people in place to help them to do the things they need? Like are you telling them to go out and maybe find contractors who can kind of help them in the short term or should they scale up and have employees or what? What’s the right approach to that?
Jaee Blue (15:50)
⁓ We always avoid telling folks to get your family members involved because that kind of causes a lot of friction and even when you’re trying to let them know like hey we’re running a business you always have this feeling like ⁓ this is my cousin I don’t really want to say this to them. ⁓ That’s the first thing we advise against and then we advise to actually contract. ⁓
And if you can’t contract, we try and help them find the right people to get the job done. ⁓ It’s not really that hard. My HR director is super good about ⁓ talking to them, figuring out where they are, where they need to be, and if they’re ready for that fit. If they’re not ready for that fit yet, it’s all about how you do your workflows and making it a little bit more easier for you.
Whether that’s AI, whether that’s ⁓ automating different systems, ⁓ we try to take some of that pressure off so you can focus on growing the business.
Sean Jordan (17:00)
So when you’re ⁓ talking to clients about marketing, because you know, this is a marketing podcast, we talk about marketing all the time. So a lot of times like you were mentioning visibility earlier, marketing can be very visible. Like if you’re out there and you’ve got ads running, or if you’re doing promotional products, or you’re doing something where it’s external communication, ⁓ it does make you look like you have some kind of success going on, because you’re putting money out there and I try to bring people in. But that could also be really self-defeating. And I’ve seen
Jaee Blue (17:11)
Mm-hmm.
Sean Jordan (17:29)
Plenty of businesses go out there with a big marketing strategy and just fall flat on their face because it didn’t bring any customers in. It spent a lot of money, but didn’t get them anything in return. So how do you counsel them about thinking about marketing? And is this something where they need to bring in their own people or is this something where they need to go externally? what kind of thought process do you recommend?
Jaee Blue (17:37)
Yep.
For me personally, I like to kind of go based on the business itself and your best cheerleader or people that are already buying your product. You want to get that data from them, use them, use them to tell your story and sell your story. And just making sure they use a a real scenario that can actually, you know, get a return on investment. Now they also have to go in knowing ⁓
You have to test a lot of these things and I wouldn’t throw millions of dollars or thousands or even hundreds of dollars into one idea ⁓ when you haven’t test A, B, C, D. ⁓ We kind of just like to spread that apart so that we can test different scenarios and see which one performs the best in a shorter amount of time before we make big decisions like that.
Sean Jordan (18:45)
⁓ I agree 100 % and you know, being a, you know, a research professional, do testing and surveys and things like that all the time. I think the biggest limitation I tend to find is that it’s hard for those that, especially when they’re in a newer business to find the resources to do the testing properly. And I mean, I’m always happy to advise them, you know, ⁓ there’s ways to do things cheaply. There always are, but it’s, hard to get good, reliable data if you don’t, if you’re not funded for it. And
Jaee Blue (19:07)
Yeah
Sean Jordan (19:14)
So in terms of like resources or other things that you’re pointing folks towards it, because I know your platform, that’s one of the things that you’re really working to do is to give them resources. Where can they go to get market data? Where can they go to find testing that doesn’t cost them an arm and a leg, but still gives them valid information?
Jaee Blue (19:31)
Yeah, I would say the library. A lot of people don’t use it and it’s free. you know, like this is some free information that you can get that you have access to. If you are a student and you’re still learning and you’re still trying to figure this stuff out, use the school. The school has a huge database. ⁓ Their library is full of information. ⁓ So I would definitely…
Sean Jordan (19:34)
Okay.
and meet.
Jaee Blue (20:00)
you know, go to the library, get this information, research the data. I mean, they have it available for you. A lot of folks don’t think about that. ⁓ And that’s, usually the first place I go. Besides your first party data and the data that you create yourself ⁓ based on your own customer base. But if you’re looking for more and you’re looking for what happened in the past and trying to learn from that, Neighborhood Library.
Sean Jordan (20:30)
It’s a great recommendation, Jay, because I call the reference desk sometimes they still have a reference desk at the St. Louis Public Library, and they they love to answer your questions like they they’re paid to do it, you know, and and like, nobody calls them. You know, they they’re there a lot during the day. Yeah, and it’s people don’t know they’re there. And so the library is actually an awesome resource. And, know, I’ll tell you one thing that I used to do and I still do occasionally is if I have students that were that we have as interns or
Jaee Blue (20:36)
What?
Yes! Yes!
Nobody.
Sean Jordan (20:59)
⁓ that are kind of working with us on a contract project or something. If they have access to academic resources that I don’t, I can always ask them to go look things up for me because some different colleges have different resources. if you have interns, if you have people who are maybe finishing their MBA or anything in your organization that have access to that stuff, that could be a really, really valuable tool that you didn’t even know you had. And it really does work.
Jaee Blue (21:02)
Yeah.
Yes!
Yes.
Yes, yes, tap into it.
Sean Jordan (21:28)
Well, you know, another thing that I really think about with marketing is so a lot of times when people are either starting out or when they’re trying to restart a business that maybe needs to grow. A lot of times they’re they’re kind of starting from a point of view where they don’t really know their customers that well, and maybe maybe they know a few of their best customers, but they don’t really know like who out there wants to buy what I’ve got or who out there is really going to ⁓ be interested in what we’re going to be offering. So how can they learn more about?
Jaee Blue (21:35)
it
Sean Jordan (21:57)
those customers. ⁓ know, again, formal research is probably out of question for him, but there’s lots of other ways to do it. What are some things that you recommend?
Jaee Blue (22:06)
Yeah, I say make sure the business solves a real problem and creates a clear value for people. So if I want to sell popcorn, I’m just going to use popcorn as an example. And you know, maybe they’re flavored and I did a little research, Google, library figured out, okay. People from this age and this age love popcorn.
Sean Jordan (22:13)
Mm-hmm.
Jaee Blue (22:35)
Let me go post outside of a movie theater and just have people taste it myself and get and collect that data myself. Sometimes it’s best to get your own first party data. ⁓ You can tell that story. You can figure out, hey, I’m just even if you don’t want to position yourself as the person, ⁓ as the business, hey, I’m out here taking surveys for his popcorn. You try it and let me know what you think. What would you do?
to make it better. What would make you buy this popcorn? And after you kind of figure out those answers, then you can go to the table. You got some data to work with.
Sean Jordan (23:12)
I love that. And I used to be really a big proponent of what’s called guerrilla marketing. Guerrilla marketing, the idea being that you’re kind of going out and using limited resources to ⁓ try to find ways to reach out to people. And going out and doing primary research like that is actually a really good way to do it because you’re not only showing people that something’s coming and maybe giving them some opportunity to think about buying it, but you’re also improving the product based on their feedback in a way that it will be more marketable.
It’s amazing how many people never do that.
Jaee Blue (23:43)
I they never do. To me, I say it’s easy, but I try to be careful with that word. It’s something that, you know, if you look into it, it can be done. And I’m a strong believer that you can do anything you say you can do. So if you think it, say it, you can do it.
Sean Jordan (23:51)
Mm-hmm.
So you know popcorn is a really great example where it sounds like a really good product. People like popcorn. It is ⁓ fairly cheap and easy to make, but it’s high value in terms of people are willing to pay for it. But sometimes you get this idea and you you take it out to the marketplace and you find out it is just not going to go anywhere. Whatever the idea was, you had people just aren’t interested in paying for it. So how do you know if your business idea is actually worth pursuing?
or if it needs to be adjusted.
Jaee Blue (24:36)
Yeah, I think validation matters more than perfection. Sometimes the idea itself is good, but the positioning with the audience or the pricing or the operational model just needs adjustment. So we kind of look and figure out, hey, does this solve a real problem and create a clear value for people? ⁓
And if you can answer that question clearly, then why not? Let’s go for it. And that’s why our first stage at VBA is clarity, helping founders validate direction before aggressively scaling things.
Sean Jordan (25:14)
Okay.
Yeah, and so when you’re going through that clarity process, I know one of the things you talked, you and I talked about was you have some folks that are doing counseling, including yourself, but you also have some AI applications that you’re working with with your platform that can also help kind of do some of heavy lifting. So what are you doing in terms of helping people with that clarity? Like what exercises do you make them do or what do you have them input in order to be able to get something that really drives them to that point?
Jaee Blue (25:46)
Yes, so we figure out the problem they’re trying to solve and then we figure out what that customer looks like. So once you figure out the problem, we want to get really detailed on who that customer is. And I’m talking about if it’s a woman, if it’s a man, does he like watching sports? Does she like wearing purses? Where does she shop and where does she get these purses from?
Sean Jordan (25:51)
Mm-hmm.
Jaee Blue (26:15)
How much does she spend a year? How much does she make a year? What is her favorite drink? And we’re trying to figure out your, to the T, what that customer looks like. So getting really clear on what the problem is, how you’re solving it, and what that ideal customer looks like.
Sean Jordan (26:38)
I love that you know in in corporate marketing a lot of times you’ll hear about brand personas or you know a customer segment personas and that’s essentially what you’re recommending is understand that person down to the deepest level of what’s driving them. What’s motivating them. What’s really making them interested in a product like yours and if you can get to that level you can really begin to isolate the right group of people that you want to market towards and make your marketing a lot more effective and that way even if you have a small strand.
Jaee Blue (26:42)
Beep beep.
Yes.
Sean Jordan (27:06)
it’s gonna go a lot further because you’re talking to the right people.
Jaee Blue (27:10)
Yes. Yeah, you’re like earlier how we were talking about people wasting thousands or hundreds of dollars on marketing. That’s one thing that they can do. Really focus in on who that target market is.
Sean Jordan (27:22)
So true. Well, we’re going to talk about VBA in a minute because I always let you plug something at the end. But tell me just a little bit about the nuts and bolts of how your platform works before we get to that. Because I’d like to just know because, you know what? Like I said, I’ve got a small business that I might want to go at some point too. So how does your platform work and how do your clients tend to interface with you on it?
Jaee Blue (27:44)
Yes, so the first thing when the first you enter the platform the first thing you have to do is take a stage assessment That kind of lets us know that lets our system know that we built to kind of ⁓ Be there for you along with our reps ⁓ Where you are in which stage that you’re in? ⁓ We ask that to answer the questions about 14 questions and you answer them honestly
The more accurate you are with your questions, the more accurate we can be with the states that we’re placing you in. And then we can come up with a detailed plan to figure out what’s next. What’s next for you? What’s next for your plan? What’s next for your business? After we decide what’s next, we then sign you up. It’s $59 a month. You get two sessions within this month, and there’s really accountability sessions.
We’re making sure, we had our first meeting, we know what we need to do. ⁓ This is the first step. This is the resource for that step. If there’s something else that you need that you can’t get in contact with, we will hunt that person down and figure it out for you. And making sure that when you show up to these sessions, you’re ready, you have the information you need to help us move you forward, and we’re good to go. So we’re always just looking at ways to move you through or to the next stage and whatever that is.
We wanna grow with you.
Sean Jordan (29:11)
That’s great. You know, I’m sure there’s people in our audience that are either the going solo or they’re thinking about going solo like marketers like you you work for a little while. You love to get out there and work for the big jobs, but then eventually you kind of realize that the money isn’t actually going out of your own. And I’ve talked to a number of people that have been in that position, but the problem is is that your business only lasts as long as your contacts last. And once your contacts and industry go, you’ve got to start finding new ways to position yourself.
So I just want to mention any marketers listening like if you’re thinking about going solo, this is a great way to get some counseling to make sure you’re not stuck in that position when your contacts all move on to other jobs. But when you’re when you’re talking to folks like that who are there, they’re smart, they’re seasoned, they’re experienced, but they’ve never run a business before. Counseling is so helpful because you can help point them in the right direction. Is there anything that you have to tell them in terms of?
⁓ Here’s where you really need to be building now for later so that you can be well positioned for the future.
Jaee Blue (30:11)
Yeah, I think that depends on the business, what they’re trying to do. If in general, I would always say figure out where you are now and have a clear understanding of where you want to go. And if you don’t know where you want to go next and you’re just living in the now, I would say take that assessment.
figure out and that assessment helps you as well. Honestly take it. I always have to say honestly because you know as a as human ego side always wants to say ⁓ I’m I’m here I want to do this I want to do that but be real with yourself when you’re taking the assessment and I feel like we can place you in the right spot and make sure you have the resources you need for the stage that you’re at based on your situation.
Sean Jordan (31:08)
And you know there’s a lot of folks that are just turning to chat GPT or Claude or other platforms like that right now and doing this and obviously you guys have some integration to be able to do that too. But ⁓ what would you say to those folks that are just turning to ⁓ AI models for this? Is there value in talking to real human beings beyond that?
Jaee Blue (31:25)
there’s always value when talking to real human beings. I say that because I know that you notice anytime you’re talking to any chat system, you’ll see it always says, you know, check, double check your answers. AI can make mistakes and it lets you know that. So talking to someone who’s really been in it, who has the connections is way different than talking to a chat bot. The difference with our chat bots, we kind of train them.
⁓ train our chat agents on the knowledge that we have and how we position certain businesses, but any chat, again, it’s just taking information from everywhere. Anywhere it can grab, anywhere it can find, and it might not be tailored to you or tailored to exactly what you need it to be. ⁓ It doesn’t have a master’s degree. It doesn’t have a bachelor’s degree. It doesn’t have
real life experience. doesn’t know your customers. ⁓ Even in AI anyway, they tell you you have to phrase questions a certain way to kind of figure out for it to spit out the right answer that you want it to spit out. But even if you’re typing, you don’t really know what you want or what you need. So I say always talk to a professional. There’s lots of free things out there. And even our first consultation is free. ⁓ We’ll give you that and give you some
great feedback that can at least help point you in the right direction.
Sean Jordan (32:56)
I love it. You’re so wise. You understand so much what small business owners really need. And I just love hearing the ideas that you have because you’ve thought it through. ⁓ so I’m really excited for anyone that is talking with you just because I know that that kind of advice is needed when you’re starting something like a business. It is just so stress inducing. And I took over a seasoned business and
Jaee Blue (32:58)
Hahaha!
yes, yes!
Sean Jordan (33:24)
I have a lot more gray hair to show for it. It’s one of those things where ⁓ there are so many things you don’t think about. think probably the biggest surprise for me ⁓ in what I took over was dealing with banks. Banks have a logic that is completely different from anybody else’s logic in the world. We had a line of credit that we had to renew because it needed to be renewed. That meant that we had to go through and do a whole bunch of paperwork. Until then, we couldn’t use our line of credit.
Jaee Blue (33:37)
Yep.
Sean Jordan (33:52)
Well, you you kind of need the line of credit to be there while you’re waiting to renew it. And nobody told us that. So you learn these lessons the hard way and having someone that can kind of counsel you and walk you through it. I mean, it’s it’s alarming when you go through the situations because you have to start thinking about, how do I make sure the lights stay on? How do I make sure that the people get paid for the work that they’re doing? And, you know, we we found a solution. Everybody finds a solution ultimately. But ⁓ it is when you’re in it. It’s really difficult.
Jaee Blue (33:58)
Yeah Yeah When you’re in it
Sean Jordan (34:21)
Yeah.
Jaee Blue (34:22)
Yes.
Sean Jordan (34:22)
Well, you know, looking back on all the folks you’ve counseled, all the experience you’ve had, what’s one decision that had the biggest impact on your business growth?
Jaee Blue (34:32)
Yes, this was a good one. So one of the biggest shifts for VBA was moving from being just a service provider into a founder ecosystem. So before we were only doing websites and only ⁓ doing logos and things like that, we realized founders didn’t just need advice. They needed systems, infrastructure, operational support, and long-term guidance. So that
Sean Jordan (34:43)
Hmm.
Jaee Blue (35:01)
shift, it shifted everything. It shifted how we built, it shifted how we did our services. So instead of isolated services, we started building connected solutions that support founders throughout different stages of growth.
Sean Jordan (35:20)
And you know, it’s funny because as I talked to different folks and we had Alicia Underwood on a few weeks ago and she was talking about how she has a an influencer economy platform that she’s built to help influencers. ⁓ You know those ecosystems are really important, not just for the kind of services that you’re offering from the service provider in, but for bringing people together and building value together, right? I mean, like you’re you’re representing them and helping them not just.
⁓ But with something that’s really a resource and that is designed to make them more successful. And I think that’s kind of the wave of the future. Honestly, I love that you’re doing that.
Jaee Blue (35:54)
Yes.
Thank you. Thank you.
Sean Jordan (36:00)
Well, let me ask you one more question before we get to our plug, and that is just, do have any great stories you can tell about people that have been successful in working with VBA?
Jaee Blue (36:09)
Yes, of course. I’ll start with, I’ll give this floor to the W. ⁓ And that’s ran by Wydonna Sumter. ⁓ She has a cosmetology school. And she was looking for ⁓ phone systems. She was looking for a website. She was looking for a system where she can grade students.
move on to the next level, but she had no resources. She didn’t know who to call. She didn’t even know where to start. She had to plan the idea for this awesome school. ⁓ She built everything. She had the physical place, the students, and all. Now she wanted a way to kind of keep the ecosystem friendly, meaning when a student comes, instead of filling out paperwork,
They’ll able to go online and make payments. They’re able to go to the website and see what the school offers. So we were able to build her solution, not only for the front end of the system, but also for the back end. The students see something beautiful when they go to the website, when they log in, when they want to check and see where they are with their grades, and it’s custom built to her user story. ⁓
Speaking a lot of technical terms, so I try and bring that back the user story is simple simply put ⁓ How the end user interacts with your product ⁓ So we made a simple user story for her and it’s just been amazing She loves it overall the websites beautiful the logos beautiful if you’re ever and St. Louis for all our viewers watching that’s not from here
Sean Jordan (38:07)
Mm-hmm.
Jaee Blue (38:07)
And if you
live here in St. Louis, I would always go there. They’re off a page in Overland, Missouri. ⁓ It’s the W. Sumter School of Cosmetology, barbering hair nails.
Sean Jordan (38:20)
Wow, and you know I just have to say I love that you were able to demystify probably one of the hardest things there, which is just to talk about. ⁓ What was he called the user ⁓ story? Yeah, just just demystify the whole customer journey aspect into something that is easy to understand and that you can then build on. Because if you understand what the user story is, then you kind of know what kind of service you want to offer. You know what it’s supposed to look like. You know when you fail when you succeed.
Jaee Blue (38:31)
user story
Sean Jordan (38:49)
So many things can come out of just that simple application. I love it.
Jaee Blue (38:54)
yeah.
Sean Jordan (38:56)
Well, Jay, it’s been great talking with you and I just, always give guests a chance to plug anything they want to plug. I’m feeling what you’re to want to plug is probably VBA and please do that. But if there’s anything else as well, feel free. Here’s your chance. Let’s go.
Jaee Blue (39:09)
Awesome. the first thing out, the biggest thing now plug really is the VBA ecosystem overall. So everything we build is designed to support founders at different stages of growth. So we’re going to start with VBA Core. VBA Core is our primary founder platform. It’s focused on operational support, guidance and business growth. And then we have creative. Our creative piece is focused on branding websites and digital business identity.
And then we have VBA voice. VBA voice focuses on business communication systems and VoIP infrastructure. If you don’t know what VoIP is, it’s basically a phone line for your business line. And then we have VBA tech. Our VBA tech supports operational systems, workflows, automation and technology infrastructure, easily put, just to kind of, you know, water it down a little bit.
If you are emailing folks for your business at j.gmail.com and I sell popcorn, I would be j.j’spopcorn.com. Just building that brand and making that brand presence a little bit stronger and so that a lot of folks don’t think you’re a scant. And then Cora Scholar. That’s the final thing we have and that kind of offers centralized operations for trade schools, vocational schools.
⁓ communication student systems and payments through one platform. So we’re just doing it. At the end of the day, VBA exists because too many talented founders fell from lack of structure, not lack of talent. Talent is there. ⁓ We’re focused on helping founders build with structure, not just ambition.
Sean Jordan (41:00)
it. All right, well Jay, it’s been such a pleasure to have you on the Marketing Gateway. I appreciate you. We will of course put links to how people can find VBA as well as your bio in the show notes so people can check you out. And I hope many people do. I hope that folks are excited about what you shared because you just have so many great systems in place for this. So thanks so much for being on the show.
Jaee Blue (41:23)
Thank you. It’s been amazing.
Sean Jordan (41:27)
I really want to thank Jay for being on the Marketing Gateway. It is always a pleasure to have such intelligent, wonderful, insightful guests on. you know, I just so appreciate what she’s doing because she went from just offering a service to offering a resource, as I talked about in the interview, and that makes a big difference in this world. We all have to help each other. You we all have to find ways to build up what we’re doing. And here in St. Louis, we do have.
some amazing people that are doing amazing things. And when we support each other, we’re able to do that much more. So that’s part of why we do the Marketing Gateway. We’re trying to highlight people that are out there and really doing it and that have great stories to tell and that can share these exciting things like she was able to talk about in this interview. So thanks again, Jay. And if you would like to be a guest on the show, I’m always happy to talk with folks that would like to be on. Please go to themarketinggateway.com. up to be a guest.
We’d love to have you on and in the meantime, we’re going to have more interviews coming. We’re going to have more of my solo episodes where we talk about marketing and we’re going to keep this train moving all summer and on into the fall because we love doing this and we hope you enjoy it too. So thanks for listening or watching. I’m Sean in St. Louis. This has been the Marketing Gateway and we’ll see you next time.
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