What I have learned over the years is that the experiences that matter most are the ones with family and friends. I was recently in a room full of professionals and the question was asked, “how many of you have taken off 2 weeks this year?” To my surprise, I was the only person in the room who raised my hand. That is why Hayley and I make traveling a priority with our annual goal setting. We want to experience the world together and with our family and friends. This focus has forced me to change the way I run my business and the type of clients that I work with. This change in priorities has given me more energy in my professional life!
My mission in life is to positively impact those around me. I have found that the best way to do this is to be “others focused” and to “always add value” to those around me.
Now the journey to where I am hasn’t all been successes, in fact, there are many challenges, obstacles, and failures that I have had to navigate over the years.
Below I share my journey with some of the lessons learned along the way!
Young Entrepreneurship
I have been an entrepreneur for as long as I can remember. In my childhood, I would pick up the neighbors’ dog poop so that I could save money to buy toys. In high school, I tutored and would take photos at sporting events and sell the photos to parents. In college, I painted the numbers on the curbs in front of your house and expanded my photography business into portrait photography. I have always been willing to work hard and try new things.
College – A Journey of Passion
When I started college I had declared as an engineering major. However, before taking my first class, I transferred to the Reynolds School of Journalism. I realized that although I was skilled in math, I was passionate about writing, and storytelling, and loved meeting new people. In college, I was able to work for a local online marketing company. This was a great opportunity because I was able to learn each aspect of online marketing, build the processes, hire the teams, and then manage the overall output. I learned copywriting, email campaigns, website development, social media marketing, video marketing, search engine optimization, pay-per-click marketing, funnel management, and more! Towards the end of my time at the company, they scaled into a niche market, which allowed me to see how to go after a vertical. I fell in love with the power of online marketing and doubled down out of college by starting my own online marketing agency!
Betting On Yourself
Five months after graduating from the University of Nevada, Reno, I launched MarkUBiz. This was 100% a bet on myself. When I started the company I had just enough money in the bank to cover one month of living expenses. This gave me the urgency to hit the market and sign new clients. This is where the beginning of the Connection Expansion System was born. I realized that most online marketing agencies were trying to generate business online, but very few of them were spending time networking and building relationships. If they were, they were joining on BNI group and that was their growth strategy. I wanted to create a strategy that was duplicatable, trackable, and scalable. I figured out the formula to maximize the meetings I could book, how to build deep relationships fast, and how to nurture the network long-term. The results were a very consistent pipeline that resulted in hockey stick growth in the first two years of the business.
MarkUBiz & Local Child Care Marketing
In my third year of business, I found myself in a unique situation. I had outsold my team’s ability to deliver. I then structured a deal to acquire the company that I had worked at in college. They had an amazing team and processes. The combined companies put us in a position for rapid growth. We had a sales machine and a top-level team. At the end of my fourth year in business, I sold the business to pursue different industries and have a different impact on those that I worked with.
A Lesson In Partnerships & Agreements
After selling, I spent a month meeting with every successful person I knew. I was completely open to all industries and all opportunities. What I discovered is that although there was a lot of money with some of the opportunities, the impact didn’t align with my goals. In the timespan of a week, I had three previous clients call me to ask questions about sales strategy and marketing strategy. This turned into my first dedicated consulting business – Live Cageless, which has also been named Powerhouse Consulting, 4505 Consulting, Your Referral Partner, and now Devin Sizemore Consulting.
At this same time, I ventured into a couple of partnerships that were very educational, but costly! With these partners, we launched a coworking space and a manufacturing company. The positive is that I was able to help raise capital, build both brands, define the systems, and create tremendous momentum in a short timeframe. The negative is that two of the partners decided to take over one of the companies and the result was underfunding in the other project and both ventures collapsed within a 60-day window.
The biggest lesson learned here is that partnerships when done right can be very fruitful, but when done incorrectly can be very costly and may negatively impact other areas of your life!
Exploring The Corporate World
With my daughter on the way and the dust settling from the various business ventures, I was recruited to take over the Reno market for BBSI. This was a unique opportunity to run a market as a business owner, but with corporate backing. I was one of the youngest area managers when hired and knew very little about the industry. I had used and referred the services previously, but I wasn’t versed in payroll processing, human resources, risk management, or workers’ compensation. However, I was able to step into the branch and in 2.5 years grow the branch by $40 million in revenue and my final year with the company we were the top branch in our region and in the top five for the entire company. My time in the corporate world taught me two things: (1) My approach to business’ growth works with companies of all sizes and in all industries. (2) I was born to be an entrepreneur!
A Cat Café?
In late 2021, Hayley and I had the crazy idea to launch a cat café. We wanted to launch a project together. What was interesting about this business is that neither of us had run a retail business before. We were able to open the doors 45 days after receiving the keys to the building! We found a lot of ways to save money while launching and learned how to streamline many of the processes in the business. Six months after opening we sold the business to one of our team members. We are excited for her to make the business her own and take the business to the next level.
Rebranding & Refocusing
After selling the cat café, I took some time to reflect on what I wanted to do next. The results of that reflection are what you see today. My top two priorities are spending time with my family and having a positive impact on the clients I work with. This has made me adjust how I work with clients so I can impact more people year-over-year while maintaining my family time. This has led to the power of masterminds. There is magic that happens when you put like-minded individuals together with similar goals. I fully believe that we can move mountains together. In the next decade imagine what we can do when we help generate 1,000,000 connections! The amount of impact that will come from 1,000,000 people connecting and having “others focused” conversations will create a ripple effect that will last for decades to come!
