An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Surround yourself with people who are where you want to be: Investing in myself and getting business coaching has been instrumental to the growth of my company. This journey has made me so much more confident in my own abilities — and I think that is a gift. It has also given me greater economic power. I get to do what I love every day and make a difference in clients’ companies. Being in community with other entrepreneurs has taught me that.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Afton Brazzoni.

Afton Brazzoni is the founder of Scribe National, a B2B content studio that helps entrepreneurs catapult their sales with undeniable brand messaging and strategic content plans. With 12 years of experience in marketing and communications, Afton’s mission is to help 100 entrepreneurs around the globe communicate the value of their work so they can command their worth. Her company also works with B2B marketers to create written content that drives demand and growth.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I’ve been a storyteller since childhood, when I wrote my first “book” about horses in a hardcover notebook, in pencil. After working as a freelance reporter at a small town weekly newspaper in the Canadian Rockies when I was 20 years old, I decided to go back to school to add a post-graduate public relations diploma on top of my journalism degree. The media industry was going through a tough time, still feeling the effects of the 2008 recession, and jobs were scarce. This opened the door to the marketing and communications industry, and I worked for several organizations over the years, ranging in size from 5 to 5,000 staff. In 2019, I was working full time and freelancing on the side when I decided I wanted to spend more time doing what I loved — writing — and that I was ready, with 10 years of experience under my belt, to start my own content writing company. It has grown from the side of my desk into a multi-six-figure company with clients around the globe.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I have so many beloved quotes, but in the context of this topic, “Done is better than perfect,” stands out to me. I’m not sure who said it. My business would not exist today if I hadn’t followed that advice. I’ll talk more about this later in the article.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

I’ve always been a big reader. Out of the 25+ books I read last year, one of my favourites of all time is We Should All Be Millionaires by Rachel Rodgers. It offers practical, straight-shooting and empowering insights that truly transformed my mindset around earning wealth as a woman entrepreneur. It’s a goodie!

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

The bottom line: just get started. There is a fine line between doing research on your competitors and getting yourself stuck. You need to be aware of your competitors, but once you’ve completed your research, get back to doing what you do best. Share your ideas with the world. Don’t try to perfect them. Keep your focus on the unique value you offer, and on serving your customers. This will get you farther than worrying about what another entrepreneur is doing.

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

I say, start with your mindset. Don’t be discouraged if you see competition in your market. It means there is demand for what you want to offer.

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.

While I’m not a patent expert, at Scribe National, my team and I have the pleasure of helping billion-dollar companies and solopreneurs alike with their marketing and launches. The common thread between successful businesses at every level? An undeniable brand and a solid strategy. This is what will make or break the idea for your business. You must be able to engage your audience in your mission if you want your company to succeed. Brand messaging and strategic content planning are integral to this process. I see far too many entrepreneurs try to market their offerings without carefully crafting their messaging and content strategy first. Don’t rush into content creation! If you need help working through all of this, I offer a group program to help entrepreneurs catapult their sales with an undeniable brand. You can find out more about it on my website.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

1. The biggest setbacks can lead to the greatest success: One of the most significant moments on my journey was after I’d been in business for six months, but was still working at my day job. I’d reduced my hours from full time to part time so I could focus more on Scribe National. I wanted to quit entirely, but felt guilty that I’d be leaving my team in the lurch. March 2020 rolls around, and I received an email saying the organization I was working for was laying off over 250 staff, myself included. I was shocked. It was a blessing in disguise, though. I immediately began to focus my full attention on Scribe National and managed to reach six figures in revenue that very first year. We now have amazing clients all over the world.
2. Challenge your assumptions: In my experience, the thought of leaving a full-time job to pursue something where you are responsible for bringing in revenue can be daunting, especially if you don’t have a financial or sales background. I had what I thought was a stable full-time job, until that stability went away and I realized that as an entrepreneur, I actually had more control over my circumstances than ever before.
3. Stay true to your mission through discomfort: You need to believe in yourself and the mission you’re trying to achieve, which is bigger than you. You need to be comfortable being uncomfortable. You need to have a desire to constantly learn and grow. Having my own business changed me greatly as a person — I had to quickly get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Don’t put yourself in a box if you don’t think you have certain skills at this moment in time. We all evolve. Be open to possibilities.
4. Link arms with others: You can’t build a successful company alone. When Scribe National had been in business for almost a year, I had so much client work that I could barely keep up. I was working from the early mornings through to the evenings, and every weekend. I was watching the very short Canadian Rockies summer slip by, and although I was grateful to have the business, I wanted to do more than work all of the time. Building an amazing team changed all of that, and I’m grateful for each and every one of my team members.
5. Surround yourself with people who are where you want to be: Investing in myself and getting business coaching has been instrumental to the growth of my company. This journey has made me so much more confident in my own abilities — and I think that is a gift. It has also given me greater economic power. I get to do what I love every day and make a difference in clients’ companies. Being in community with other entrepreneurs has taught me that.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

First, research your competitors to see what they do well and where they fall short. Second, be very clear on the promise your product offers and who it is intended for. Understand their struggles and aspirations deeply. There’s more to it than that, but these two simple steps will enable you to start off on the right path to create something that truly stands apart from the competition.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

Investing in yourself and getting expert guidance to set you on the right path is ALWAYS a solid idea, in my opinion. I don’t think we can do anything completely on our own. It takes a community of support.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

I’ve worked a lot with the tech industry, so I hear about founders raising capital nearly every day. As the owner of a marketing company, you likely don’t have that option. I didn’t. This is true for many service-based businesses as well. In addition, the stats show that women face significant barriers to accessing venture capital. As someone who has bootstrapped, although it can be tough and you may not be able to grow or hire as quickly as a company with a $1M raise under its belt, you have greater autonomy over your business because you’re not beholden to investors. However, this is my perspective as a founder who has bootstrapped her company, and I realize there are huge benefits to receiving funding.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

When your company earns wealth, you have the opportunity to give back and use that wealth to support causes you care about. For me, those are humanitarian and animal rights causes. Aside from the monetary aspect, helping others up is also a huge part of giving back — whether it’s giving your time or attention to support the work they’re doing.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I would inspire a movement to empower people to step out of the echo chambers that are harming our society and listen to one another’s perspectives with empathy. Differences of opinion are not something to be afraid of or stomped out.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

I would love to meet Rachel Rodgers, the author of the book I mentioned, We Should All Be Millionaires. She is doing amazing work in the world to lift others up!

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

---

Making Something From Nothing: Afton Brazzoni Of Scribe National On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.