The Commission Code for Success

From Showgirl to Serial Entrepreneur: Kristen Corral's Journey to Business Success

• The Commission Code For Success from Sims Training and Consulting, LLC • Season 1 • Episode 29

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What does a former Las Vegas showgirl know about marketing on a budget? As it turns out, quite a lot. Kristen Corral joins us to share her remarkable journey from entertainment to entrepreneurship, revealing how she built multiple successful businesses—including seven restaurants—using creative marketing strategies that cost next to nothing.

Kristen pulls back the curtain on her powerful community partnership model that drives revenue while making a positive impact. Rather than simply writing checks to charities, she creates structured collaborations with clear deliverables that benefit both organizations. Her current partnership with Nevada SPCA features a massive Mexican pizza special at her plant-based restaurant chain Tacotarian, driving two audiences to one location while supporting animal welfare.

The marketing gems in this episode are both surprising and immediately actionable. Kristen explains how she uses AI as a dedicated PR assistant (saving $7,000 monthly), optimizes Google Business profiles in ways most owners overlook, and secures regular local media coverage through strategic, unselfish pitching. Her approach to blogging uses customer questions as content fuel, positioning her businesses as authoritative resources in their industries.

What makes Kristen's advice so valuable is that she's implemented these tactics herself, scaling her first business—a dog walking service—to six figures with zero marketing budget. Now with a TEDx talk under her belt and a growing restaurant empire, her practical wisdom proves that effective marketing isn't about spending more—it's about thinking strategically and leveraging resources creatively.

Ready to transform your marketing approach without breaking the bank? Listen now, take notes, and prepare to see your business visibility grow through these tested, accessible strategies that any entrepreneur can implement today.

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Speaker 1:

So I scaled that quickly to six figures using these marketing tactics that I kind of give everyone. The number one is create a website. Now that is easier than ever. When I started my business in 2011, I had to build it myself and do it on WordPress. Now AI can build you a website in five minutes, oh yeah, and it can look great. And so the second tip I always say is like optimize your Google my Business profile. This again yes, everyone has a Google my Business profile, but how optimized is it?

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Commission Code Podcast. We're here to help you overcome the challenges that most of us face in our business. From time to time, you know things like feeling like you're on a plateau and you just can't seem to grow your business. Or maybe feeling overwhelmed, just trying to make ends meet and yet it seems like you're always working. Or maybe you've done quite well for a while, but now nothing seems to be working anymore. Well, we want to help you solve those problems and many more. Our objective is to provide you with practical solutions so you can grow your business and have more time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Speaker 2:

My name is Morris Sims and I'm going to be your host for this show. I've spent years okay, decades really in the corporate world teaching business owners how to increase their revenue and use professional sales processes and run their business more effectively and efficiently. I started my own consulting and trading business about seven years ago, I guess, and I'm helping my clients do just exactly that Get more revenue, increase their revenue and have more time to enjoy the fruits of their labor. But I got to tell you I'm having more fun than ever helping people build successful businesses. So, with all that said, let's get on with today's episode of the Commission Code for your Success. Today's episode of the Commission Code for your success. Kristen Corral is our guest today on the Commission Code. Kristen's got some really great and interesting things to tell us about what she's been able to do and what she's done and help us with ideas about marketing and building community. Kristen, thank you for being here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 2:

Tell us a little bit about you. What do you do?

Speaker 1:

So right now I am a restaurant owner and entrepreneur. I am co-owner of seven restaurants, so I'm very busy. Some of them are here in Las Vegas, some of them are in California. Our biggest concept is Tacotarian. It's a plant-based mexican eatery, um, but on the side I teach people how to build marketing on a budget and I'm a former showgirl, so that's an interesting fact about me. Uh, yeah, and I kind of went from showgirl to serial entrepreneur and here I am talking to you well, I kind of figured that when I saw that headdress that you're wearing I mean, it made me realize.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you know, I just wear it around everywhere.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I see Very good, very good. Oh, that's super. And what is vegan? Tacos, vegetarian.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so Tacotarian is 100% plant-based tacos. We started in 2018, and now we've scaled to six locations and we're franchising, so no matter where you live in the US, you might have a Tacotarian coming to you soon.

Speaker 2:

Tacotarian. Oh, I got to remember that I've got grandkids that are allergic to everything, so it works really well to do something. Anyway, Kristen, tell us about marketing from your point of view. I noticed in your bio and stuff it mentioned building community. Talk to us about that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think one of the biggest successes or drivers of success in our businesses has been embedding ourselves into the community. And I think community is such a buzzword. But what are people actually doing to build community? And I actually recently did a TEDx talk on this exact topic, which is how to leverage your community to drive revenue. And one of the ways that we do that really well is we can, uh, we create community partnerships. So let's say, um, one of my favorite charities is the Nevada SPCA, so they're our charity partner for two months. So it's an animal shelter here locally. We partner with them.

Speaker 1:

But we don't just say like, hey, we're going to round up 50 cents on every order, or, you know, like you do at the grocery store, or we're just going to write you a check and say that we wrote you a check. What is that actually? I mean, because that's what people do. It's a tax break, you know, but that's not actually growing our business. That's just, you know, writing a check for the sake of writing a check.

Speaker 1:

So we came up with this program where we do a different, really high level special every two months and we rotate them every year, kind of like how Taco Bell or McDonald's does so. Right now we have a Taco Bell style Mexican pizza, but it's huge, it's like this big, and a percentage of the proceeds go back to NSPCA. So the way that we build community is we set a list of deliverables. So we say, okay, nspca and TacoTarian are both going to send out to their you know, 30 to 60,000 person email list. They're both going to reach out on social media post about this special and tell people to go order it. They're both going to reach out to local press and tell them how you know great this Mexican pizza is and tie that into the community. So we're both doing all of these things. So what we're doing at the end of the day is we're driving two audiences into one restaurant to order this special for the benefit of both organizations.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's practical. I mean, I love it when folks come up with stuff that we can duplicate and all of us could do something like that. I'm sitting here thinking I can partner with somebody and and we could do a special series of podcasts or or some, and that's a great idea.

Speaker 1:

And it works for any business. Like you said, you could do it for your podcast If you had a beauty brand, if you had, you know, a dog walking company. It works for any industry.

Speaker 2:

Boy, that's cool idea. That really is neat. Tell me again now. You mentioned something and you showed us with your hands because we're recording this on Zoom but we're only going to use the audio but you showed me how big that taco was with your hands. Tell me how big that thing is.

Speaker 1:

I think it's like 12 inches around the Mexican pizza. So it's almost like if you've ever gone to Taco Bell and you've ordered their Mexican pizza, it's probably like four inches around. So ours is like it's huge. It comes in like an actual pizza box when you order it. If you go on our Instagram you can see it. It's ginormous.

Speaker 2:

So not the size of a large, but bigger than a personal.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's cool. There you go. That is really really cool. Well, back to marketing and the real topic here. I love the partnership idea. What else you got for us?

Speaker 1:

Well, I mean gosh, how much time you got.

Speaker 2:

I think there's a lot of. I can be Joe Rogan. We can do this for three hours.

Speaker 1:

There are so many misconceptions about marketing, and that's kind of where I'm coming from. I'm just kind of breaking down these stereotypes of like you need to hire a PR agent. I know, before you hit record, we were talking about AI and things like that. I use AI a lot, but what people are doing wrong with AI is they're using it as a search engine. We have a search engine, we have Google. We've had Google for years. We don't necessarily need another search engine. What we need is help, no-transcript, so you can train it, you can give it a prompt, say hey, listen, I'm hiring you as my new PR executive for TacoTarian. These are going to be your job responsibilities. You list out all the job responsibilities and then where most people miss the mark is you say ask me 10 questions about my business that are going to help you better do your job. And then I even ask them what they want to be called in when I hire them for different tasks, and so I give them a name, I give them a job description, just like you would a regular new hire, and you give them all of the responsibilities and you set the expectations and then you keep that thread as you you know.

Speaker 1:

Pr exec on the side, because you can organize them by folders and then that is my dedicated PR. So if you need to draft a press release, if you need them to research who to send a press release to, if you need them to, you know, review materials that you've put together. Maybe you need an opinion on crisis PR. Of course, it's not foolproof. You have to review these things and I'm a big proponent of re-editing. I don't copy and paste what AI has given me. I use it for outlines, but this is just an example. Traditional PR is $7,000 a month For a small business. It's not affordable. It's great if you're a large business and you're scaling and this and that, but it's worked really, really well and I've been really successful at getting grassroots PR with a little bit of help from AI. I did it before I had AI, but now I have AI to help me, which is great. So these are just some of the tools that small business owners I think are underutilizing or not utilizing at all, that can really help scale their business quickly.

Speaker 2:

Another very practical point. I love it. Kristen AI. You mentioned editing. I think that's so important because today there's AI that will go in and look at what you've done and you can say make this not look like AI. And it will go in or it will tell you. My wife and my daughter are teachers and and we were talking about AI yesterday and it was like, yeah, but we don't want kids to use this to write their essay or their term paper or something. And my daughter says, yeah, but there's a place you can send it and say check this to see if it was created by AI and it'll come back and say yes or no and how to fix it. So it's a great tool, but I think you still have to be a little bit careful, don't you?

Speaker 1:

Absolutely Well. Number one it's not always factual. So if you're using it for research or like factual based things, it's not always right. So you need to number one.

Speaker 1:

If it gives you information that's not factual, you need to correct it and say like hey, no, you gave me something wrong and it'll be like oops, I'm so sorry, you're right. You're right, you know it's. Ai, as everyone's talking about recently, is a bit of a butt kisser, like it doesn't? It's always telling you, you're right, it's always telling you how great you are, and you need to kind of put it in its place sometimes. So I think, yes, you absolutely have to review, you have to fact check and you can't just copy and paste. I think it's great for outlining, but you still have to. It's very cold. You have to put emotion into it, like there's there. You have to add a human touch. That's just. That's just how it's going to be. But the people that excel at using it to get started and get light years ahead of the people that are starting from scratch, that's where it's like a really powerful tool.

Speaker 2:

Oh, it's amazing, I'm just getting into it, so I'm excited about it. But yesterday I'm building a course, a video based digital sales course, and when I do that, I do it the way I've done it for 40 years there's a video, there's a workbook, there's an audio and all this kind of stuff. I uploaded the transcript to ChatGBT and I very carefully told it exactly what I wanted in a workbook and how I wanted it to look. It came back and asked me a few questions and it generated a workbook based on my design that I asked it to use, and it was exactly what I wanted. Exactly, kristen. It took me less than 10 minutes probably closer to five, and writing that thing would have required watching the entire video, because there was another person that did the content. Watching the entire video, taking notes and then replacing that and putting that into a workbook format. Oh, the brainpower that takes is enormous. I did it in five minutes. It was incredible. Exactly it was incredible.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, it saved you hours. Now you can start selling that course faster, which is more money in your pocket. I mean, time is money.

Speaker 2:

No, absolutely. There's no doubt about that and, as you mentioned, money is tight. It always has been Heck. I've been around for 68 years and let me tell you it was tight when I was growing up and it's tight today. The numbers may be bigger, but we're still living. Many of us are still living paycheck to paycheck, unless we own seven restaurants, and you know it's.

Speaker 1:

No, trust me. I think there's a misconception that if you own seven restaurants, you're set. Trust me, that is not the case. Restaurants you're set. Trust me, that is not the case. I was driving my 2015 Prius until this year and I upgraded to a leased Volkswagen.

Speaker 2:

That was very practical and affordable, but I drove that car until it was no longer drivable. Yeah, I love it. I never would have done it before, but I've got a Toyota that's got almost 100,000 miles on it and that's just amazing to me. Anyway, it is tight, money is tight. So got some ideas for us for marketing that don't necessarily cost us $7,000 a month.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. I think there are so many ways that you can get started that can cost you $0. I've done this from day one. I've scaled multiple businesses.

Speaker 1:

My first business after I retired from being a showgirl was a dog walking and pet sitting business. So I didn't really know what else to do. I was retiring from being a showgirl and I'm like what am I going to do? I had no college degree, no really like hireable skill sets, and I didn't particularly want to work for anyone either. So I said, what am I going to do? I was like I want to be a business owner, I want to be a small business. This is what I want to do. And so I was like what do I like? I was like well, I like animals, great. So I got certified in animal massage, which sounds nutty, but that is a thing. And I had this niche of like. I'm certified in animal massage, but that's not going to be obviously like marketing to everybody. So how can I kind of leverage that? So I created an all-inclusive pet care company and I scaled it from the ground up with no skills, no business skills, zero marketing, like zero dollars. I started from scratch. I had nothing. So I scaled that quickly to six figures using these marketing tactics that I kind of give everyone. The number one is create a website. Now that is easier than ever. When I started my business in 2011, I had to build it myself and do it on WordPress. Now you can AI can build you a website in five minutes, um, and it can look great.

Speaker 1:

And so the second tip I always say is like optimize your Google my business profile. This again yes, everyone has a Google my business profile, but how optimized is it? Are you? Do you have user generated content on there? Do you have professional content on there? Do you have video? Is your description optimized for keywords that people are searching for? Is it connected to your social media? Does it offer your services on there? All of these things? The more you use Google, the more Google will basically prioritize you on Google, and so there's a feature on Google my Business that most people don't use and it's like a posting feature, almost like social media, and you can go on every week and post a special, an update, something that you're doing, and it moves you kind of up to the top of the feed. So when people are searching for you, it bumps you up. So that was one of the number one things that I did to rank higher on Google.

Speaker 1:

The second is blogging. Seo is still important, even with AI, because a lot of times, ai is just pulling from the internet. So the more you can be visible on the internet, the more you will grow. So people don't understand what a blog is because it sounds very old school in 2011. But in 2025, my greatest suggestion is use the website answerthepubliccom. Search for your niche and find out what people are asking. It will give you hundreds of questions who, what, why, where and how of your niche. So if I put in dog walking, it'll give you questions like who's searching for dog walking, how they're searching, what they're searching for. Use those questions the most relevant ones and answer those in blog form. Become an expert in your industry, because nine times out of 10, your competitors are not doing that, and then you will outrank them.

Speaker 1:

Then the number one most underrated marketing tip I can give anyone out there is utilize your local media. I just did a workshop on this for women in business and 62% of households still watch local news. Now, for the other 40%, they're probably still seeing local news on YouTube, on clips, on social media, the links on the internet, so that's potentially millions of impressions that you're missing out on for free. But there's a catch to getting on local media. You can't just call them and say, hey, I have this great business, can you talk about me on the news please? That's not going to work. You have to be unselfish with your pitches and this is where people get hung up and they say like, oh, I've tried to get on local news but I can't. There are weeks when I'm on the local news every single day, five days a week. Why? Because I'm pitching unselfish stories and managing to tie them back to my business. I'll give you an example.

Speaker 1:

We were burglarized multiple times at one of our restaurants in an arts district area. It was becoming an issue with crime. So I posted on social media saying, hey, like city of Las Vegas, you have to do something about the homelessness and the crime in the downtown area. Because we were just getting hit over and over. I posted the video with the security footage. I tagged all the news people.

Speaker 1:

That became a huge story because, number one, I was calling out our city of Las Vegas and telling them they had to take action. I was putting pressure on and then I was tagging all the local news. So they were coming to me and saying, hey, let's talk about this, let's talk about the crime, let's do this. They wanted to hear about the story, but what that related to the city of Las Vegas is oh man, these poor business owners are getting killed downtown and no one's helping them. So we became the underdog story, and people love an underdog story, and so people were heading to that location to say like, hey, let's support TacoTarian this week, because you know they're hurting, they're getting vandalized, they're getting stolen, they're getting burglarized. So you have to tie it back to something meaningful within your community.

Speaker 2:

Those are great. Oh, I love it. I absolutely love it. I've always wanted to get on local media and I didn't know how to do it. Now you've just told me Thank you, give you the secret sauce. Okay, I've got two questions for you that probably are not terribly related, but I am betting that everybody wants to know where were you? A show girl?

Speaker 1:

So I was in many different shows. I worked for multiple magicians. I got cut in half. Um, multiple magicians, I got cut in half. I worked with tigers, which is weird, um, I know, yes, because now it goes against everything I stand for, but back then I didn't know better. Um, and then I went on to do a couple different shows. So the last show that I retired from was a show called peep show. It was at planet Hollywood and it was kind of like a fairy tale themed show and it was with Holly Madison and Coco did it for a little while. A bunch of celebrities did it. So that was like the last big show that I retired from.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's really cool. That is really really cool. Never met a showgirl before. I feel really excited. Another question again, maybe not related, but important Tell us about being on TED and doing a TED Talk. How do you do it, how did it feel? I'll let you tell us from here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, it was. Honestly, I still haven't seen the video. The video hasn't been released yet. This was in April, so it takes them a little bit of time to edit and then TEDx, kind of like releases them on a schedule on their website. But you know, I applied, I think at the end of December and this was the first official Las Vegas TEDx, because you know, it's like a licensing you have to get permission to put on the event. It's like a whole thing that they have to do with licensing and being an official TEDx event. So this was the official Las Vegas one. So you know, of course a lot of people applied.

Speaker 1:

Everybody wants to speak at TEDx. I put together this pitch and I sent in. I had to send in numerous video pitches like different things of me talking, showing my you know, examples of me doing what I do, and so I submitted all that. Then they came back and they wanted like an elevator pitch. So there was a little bit of back and forth and then when I finally got the word that I got it, I was like oh, my God now I actually have to do this.

Speaker 1:

What did I do? And so you select like a timeframe, so I thank God. I selected the five to eight minute speech of like my length I was like what if I had chosen 15 minutes? I would have died. So the thing that's different about TED is that it's scripted Like it's a memorized talk, where normally when I talk it's like this you know, I'm just like hey, let's talk about marketing, let's do this, let's do this.

Speaker 1:

Like I could go off the cuff for days about, you know, things that I'm passionate about. But this is like a scripted with slides, it's time there's like a countdown in front of you while you're on stage. So I put four months of just like every day just working on this for at least 20, 30 minutes, going through it, you know. And then we went to rehearsals and before I got on stage I I literally thought I was going to pass out. I was like I can't do this. And the guy behind me he was so sweet, I think his name was Rodney and he was the speaker after me and he came up to me. He's like don't worry, girl, you got this, you got this. Like all your ancestors are behind you and.

Speaker 1:

I was like and my grandma had just passed away like the month before, so I was like, oh my God, this man is so helpful. So I went out there, I got up on stage and I just like it all came out and it was so exciting and I was so thrilled and it's honestly like one of the highlights of my entire career.

Speaker 2:

It's amazing how that happens, though, once you get out there and you get started. Friend of mine, we're building up, we're building another course on speaking, and he says you got to love your audience and you got to know your stuff. Yeah, and if you love your audience and you know your stuff, then it's all going to come together for you in the end. And it's happened to me every time I've spoken on stage.

Speaker 1:

But my word, you presented and, well, you have performed in front of thousands of people I know and you would think like it's the same thing, but it's not. It's not.

Speaker 2:

It's not, it's not, it really isn't, and it just you got to connect with that audience and you got to love them and have some empathy for them and their situation and put yourself. Anyway, it's a lot of fun. I enjoy doing that more than most. Anything else I do is speaking in front of groups.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, I love it too. It's so fun.

Speaker 2:

Oh it is. It's a blast. Kristen, thank you so much for taking your time in Vegas this morning to spend time with us on the Commission Code.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thank you so much, this was great.

Speaker 2:

Well, that does it for this episode of the Commission Code Podcast. This is the place where we want to help you find the commission code to success in your business. Remember, go to MorrisSimscom for more information and in the meantime, hey, have a great week, get out there and meet somebody new, and we'll see you again next time right here on the Commission Code. Best wishes. I'm Morris Sims.