Automate the Chaos | Kimberley Vargo

Hey creative, are you ready to discuss profits, the money, the ways to make it happen? The Profitable Creative Podcast is for you, the creative, how you define it. Videographers, photographers, entrepreneurs, marketing agencies, you get it. CEO of Core Group and author Christian Brim interviews industry experts, creative entrepreneurs, and professionals alike who strive to be creative and make money at the same time. Sound like you? Tune in now. It's time for profit.

Welcome to another episode of The Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. A special shout out to our one listener in Edwards, Colorado. No idea where that is. Hopefully you're looking at a beautiful sunrise or sunset on the mountain. Thank you for listening. Joining me today, Kim Vargo of Kim Vargo Co. Kim, welcome to the show.

Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

Well, I'm glad you're here. It's a Monday morning. You know, I didn't know if you'd show up, so it's a win already.

Well, yes, I do tend to show up.

Well, you'd be surprised. Yeah. You know, strangely, you'd be surprised. So in the green room, you were saying that you were a former teacher. What did you teach?

I was a high school math teacher for 10 years. Yes, that's everyone's reaction.

Yeah. Uh, yeah, you couldn't pay me enough money to teach in, in this environment. Uh, it, it's insane. So, um, what— why did you get out of teaching?

Um, well, a bit of the environment, like you said. Um, but also I have two small children. I have 3-year-old twins. Um, yeah, and I, you know, I kind of had been thinking about leaving teaching for a while, but once I had my kids, that was really the nail in the coffin that I knew I wanted more flexibility and freedom and time with them. So this is actually my first year not teaching anymore. Um, and it's—

do you miss it?

No, no, I don't. Um, I think it's funny, everybody, it's a quick no for me right now. Um, and maybe one day it won't be a quick no, but as of right now, I'm very happy with the decision I made.

I have to tell you, I got kicked out of my high school math class. Okay. Now, you might have some assumptions about what that looked like, but in reality, I got kicked out for reading. Would you like to hear the rest of the story?

Yes, I would.

Okay. So I was in a class and I was in my sophomore year, So it was my first year in high school. And unfortunately, I knew the material that she was teaching. And I had learned that you got in trouble when you're disruptive because I like to talk. And so I would talk a lot. And so my solution was I'll just bring a book and read because there's no reason for me to listen to her because, you know, I know what she's talking about.

You knew what was going on. Yeah.

Right. So I'm sitting there reading the book and she stops her lecture and she says, "Christian, why don't you just put on a sign that says, 'I don't need Mrs. Dimmons'?" And I'm like, "Hmm, okay." And I didn't say anything. And she goes, "Why don't you just leave my class?" And I'm like, "Okay." And so I got my stuff, walked out the class, and then she chased me into the hall because I guess she didn't think I was going to leave anyway. That's my—

Yeah. You know, I think it's like a— that's a tough problem. It is. You have kids. I mean, most of my kids didn't know the material, but there are always the few that have seen it before and are bored. And it's hard to know what to do with them. And a lot of the time they do end up being disruptive. So I think the book was a good choice.

I thought so too. I thought I was being respectful. Yeah, evidently not. Uh, okay, so you, you left teaching to do what?

Okay, so, well, initially I was kind of like, what am I going to do? Had the thoughts in my head, why I'm— all I can do is teach, which is not true. Um, and I initially started out as a virtual assistant, which seems to be a path that a lot of teachers take to get out of the classroom, and quickly realized that it was really broad, um, and I wanted to find something more specific. And I learned about a CRM called Dubsado that I know and use and love now. I'm actually now a Dubsado Certified Specialist, and I kind of just went all in. Um, and now what I do is I'm a systems and operations strategist. I work mainly with wedding industry professionals, and help them streamline their backend systems and so they can focus on what they enjoy and not all of the back and forth with their clients and forget, did I remember to send that email or have I sent that form? I try to take that out of their head so they can focus on what they're good at.

So why did you, why did you pick wedding photography as your niche?

Yeah, that's a good question. It kind of fell into my lap. Um, I had one of my first virtual assistant clients does signage and stationery for weddings. We still work together. Um, and I loved working with her. I loved learning about her process. I also felt like I understood it really well. Um, I, when I was in high school, I was a waitress. I've worked in that like hospitality, um, business. I get— not like directly with weddings, but I totally understand like the caliber of the services that they're providing and, you know, like what their clients' expectations are. So it's— it was kind of easy for me to fall into that, and then it just kind of was word of mouth and connections with other people through her and beyond. And it just, it's been what I've just focused on because I really like it.

How long have you been doing it?

Um, full-time, not long. Full-time since this fall, but part-time, 2 and a half years.

Okay. And the, your, your clientele is regional, local, national, like Where do you find—

Yeah, I mean, most of my clients end up being in New England. Um, I live in New Hampshire, and— but that's just kind of how the chips have fallen. I, I have worked with people in California, Colorado. It really doesn't matter, um, because what I do is totally, totally virtual.

So did you come from an entrepreneurial background? I mean, like, prior to teaching, or your, your family? I mean, like, where did you figure out that figured out that doing your own thing was the right path?

I don't think I necessarily figured it out in any particular way or like from any particular person. I just knew that teaching wasn't working for me. I didn't really want another 9-to-5 type situation with my kids. I think with like social media, I kept seeing people doing it and having success. So I think it's just like the age we're in. I saw it working for other people and I said, well, why can't I do that?

So I went for it.

So accidental kind of thing. Yeah, it was pretty accidental.

Yeah. Okay. What are some of the challenges that you have come up against moving into the entrepreneurial role?

Um, not having a consistent paycheck is huge. Um, I'm not— most of what I do is not retainer-based, it's project-based. So I'm like constantly having to market myself, um, which is another challenge. Talking about myself is really— it's just like weird for me, um, to feel like selling myself. It's not something I've ever had to do before. So that's been a challenge. And as much as I said I wanted flexibility, having flexibility, you have to like force yourself to do stuff, right? Nobody's telling me to sit down at my desk and do work for my clients. I have to do that. So it's, it's, it's, that's been an adjustment, but it's a nice problem to have.

Yeah, people, I have experienced this a few times and this, this past year was one of them, where you're at a point in business where, uh, you have both financial freedom and time freedom. And, and that's like the ultimate goal, right? Like, you, you've, you've got profit from your business and you— it's not sucking all the time out of you, right?

Yeah.

Um, but it does put you in a strange place because it's then the now what? Like now what do I do? Right? And that absolutely is a challenge. I am curious. So if you'll indulge me here. The CRM again was what?

Dubsado.

Dubsado. So you essentially come in and create systems and processes for photographers, uh, to, to handle the back-end project management for them?

Is that— yeah, mostly. So Dubsado is more like client management. So I feel like most of my clients come to me with like total chaos in their business in all aspects. Um, the creative brain doesn't necessarily lend itself to systems very well. I'm sure you know that. Um, Yes, it's a trend for sure. Um, so I think like most of my clients need a CRM for like client back and forth, but also then like a task manager. Um, so I mostly focus on the CRM stuff as of right now. Um, I eventually might expand into task management stuff as well, but for now I mostly focus on like inquiry process, sending proposals and contracts, sending questionnaires, automating emails as much as possible, check-ins, scheduling calls, all that kind of stuff.

So you said one of the challenges was the recurring money. And I think that a lot of creatives are in that space. In other words, they, and I have a theory about this, but I'm not going to go into it, but they tend to gravitate towards project work, right? And they're probably going to tell you, well, that's what their clients want. And I'm like, not necessarily, but okay, we'll stipulate that. And the challenge is how do you move maybe not entirely from project work to more of a recurring revenue model. And you mentioned retainer model, and that's where a lot of them go. But you— I wanted to dig in, if you would allow me, on what you do for people to see if there is a way to create a recurring solution permanent solution to a problem that doesn't, that could be recurring.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to start with the question. Does Dubsado allow you to white label their product or not?

Yes.

Okay.

Do you? I, depending on the client, I will do it for them. Or give them instructions on how to white label.

So if you were going to pick the most common reason people come to you, uh, what is the problem they need fixed? Hey listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy. And if you're not ready to make that full commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now.

I think most of them are feeling overwhelmed and in like 100 different places, like they're getting their inquiries maybe through DMs or email or text. Like, they're not— all their DMs are coming into one place. They're scheduled— they're like missing calls because they didn't get a reminder, or their clients aren't getting reminders. They're— I don't think it's one thing. I think it's like all of the things for them, um, which Yeah.

Okay.

So, so it's hard to pinpoint, I guess.

Are you, are you talking about like marketing and sales activity or, or activity of serving the client after they're, they're engaged?

I think both.

Okay.

So I help with like lead process, but also onboarding and beyond.

Okay.

All the way through the project.

So if you were going to pick one of those, like either the marketing lead generation tracking that side or the onboarding client customer service side, which would you prefer personally? Like what do you prefer?

To do? I think the lead process I really like doing. And I think that's actually like, what most of my clients really struggle with is the inquiries and like getting proposals out and having like their contracts and their invoicing kind of all in one place versus like, oh, I have to get my contract here. I have an invoice here. Maybe they're not even using contracts.

Yeah. So what I envision, and again, I, I, I'm not telling you what to do. I'm not even saying what I think is, is would work, but I'm just opening up the, the box to think. Um, so, so what I kind of envision is a, uh, service that you offer for a flat monthly fee to manage their— I, I don't know, leads, uh, you know, I don't know how exactly you'd phrase that. It would depend upon what scope you want to work in. Like, are you actually handling the marketing side of it or you just, you know, inbound lead side of it. And doing that for a flat fee, but it's always on, whether they have leads or not, right? How does that resonate? Does that sound like it might be a solution that people would buy?

I think so. I think like the problem is with, say, my biggest service that I offer is like a full Dubsado setup, which is a project-based thing. Ideally, like, if I do a good job, they shouldn't really need me to manage their inquiries. However, they're still like, you can't automate everything. There are manual steps to whatever process. And I think some people do still get hung up on those manual steps. Um, which is where I could come in and sort that. I, I do have a few clients that I do that for. Um, that signage person I was telling you about, like, I handle her inquiries, I create her proposals, I get them sent out, because it's still like her proposals are super custom and she just doesn't have the bandwidth to deal with it, right? So I mean, you're getting at something that I'm already kind of doing. So yeah, it's certainly possible.

Do you charge her a flat fee or do you do it on a retainer?

We do a retainer of hours. It was in your last podcast, you were talking about how hourly is bad. So I'm ready for you to yell at me.

Go ahead and get booed.

But it's, I don't know, I have a hard time with something like that not doing hourly. Like, I do have a guaranteed number of hours. And if I— so I'm guaranteed 10 hours a month for work with her. And if she doesn't hit that, then she's still paying me for 10 hours. But she always hits it. Okay. And then I charge her more. So I don't know.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna— let's, let's dive into that.

Yeah.

Why do you feel like, um, you, you, you would prefer or need? Why do you want to charge hourly?

I don't necessarily want to. Um, I think I just struggle with the variability, and I think potential clients struggle with the variability in work too, where they're like— and I'm, maybe I'm assuming something that's not true, But if they have like, you know, she needs to send 3 proposals this month and next month it's 10, I don't want to like screw myself over when on the month I have to do 10 proposals.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, okay. So, so I think you hit it right on the head where most people struggle with that. I mean, some people struggle with like, I don't want to, I don't want to get paid for work I don't do. Quote unquote, like I'm doing a retainer for 10 hours, but I only work 3. That, you know, that doesn't feel right. Okay. That's a separate mindset. The mindset you speak of, which is I want to make sure I don't screw myself, is actually pretty easy to fix. Okay. And I had this conversation internally with my team once. When we were reviewing pricing for a specific service. And the question— accountants, you know, they're basically engineers' cousins. And so they like to analyze things and quantify things. They're really big on quantifying things, which is good.

My dad's an accountant.

Yeah, I mean, it's good. You want them to quantify things, right? Yeah. And so their pushback to me was like, well, how do we know? And I'm like, okay, I'll stipulate that you don't know how much time it's going to take you. That's totally fine. Do you think the client cares how much time it takes you? No, no, absolutely not.

So, done.

Exactly. So the way you do that to protect yourself, I said, go back and look because you have history. Go back and look and see how much time it took you when you did this service, um, take the 80th percentile. So, so, you know, we'll not even take the, the middle, let's just take the 80th percentile and charge that. And so that there's really only— you've really only got 20% exposure, right? Like 20% of the time you're gonna— it's gonna take more time than you've billed them for, but 80% of them are going to pay you more than it's going to take you time for, right? And because I think hourly billing has become a convenient excuse for a lot of professionals, and you're not the only one. Accountants are still awful at it. Lawyers can't get away from it. But to your point, you said they— and that is the truth that you need to realize, we all need to realize— is they don't care The client, the customer does not care how much time it takes you to do something. They, they do care about a deadline, right? Like the timeframe is important, but like your time is, is largely irrelevant to them. Right. So is there a way to price it not in an hourly way that gives them what they want at a price they're willing to pay? What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I mean, I'll tell you, I've definitely thought about this because I would love to not have to deal with the hourly. Um, yeah, I think it's possible. I think what you said about the 80th percentile, like, makes sense. Um, I think my concern is it's just like super client-specific based on how many leads they're getting every month and like, you know what I mean?

Yes. And so then you could tier price it, right?

You know, based upon— Yeah, like up to X amount is this.

Well, I would even go further and say, is there a way that you could determine their activity level and price it that way without ever actually saying it's activity-based? For instance, if you knew they did X number of weddings a year, you could back into how many leads that is, right? Or if you knew, you know, take it a step further, if you knew they were a certain revenue size because they did so many weddings, then you could, you know, you see what I'm saying? And so like you could, you could, and you don't even, I mean, you could put that pricing out there to say, like, if you do $500,000 in revenue, your price is X, or $200,000, your price is Y, or you don't even have to do that. You could make that determination in your sales process, like, in quoting the price. But I think that we get lost in our heads a lot of times, um, when, to your point again, they want a solution. And if, if they can afford it, then they're going to pay you for it regardless of, of how much time it takes you. And as you get better at your craft, your systems become better. You white label stuff that you've got a lot of stuff automated then, you know, if you're on an hourly model, you're actually— you're leaving money on the table because you're— as you get more efficient, you're going to make less money. And that's absolutely backwards, right? If you're better at your craft, you should be making more, right? And technology is getting to the point where people— people may, may guess like, well, Yeah, it may not take you much time to do this because the software is better and AI and automation and all those other things. They may intuitively know, well, you know, it may not take Kim that much time, but they don't care because they're getting what they need.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, it's definitely something to consider.

Okay. Well, I want you to come back on the show next year and tell me how it went. Okay.

Okay.

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Let's pivot and go back to your challenges in business. So you mentioned how to stay— I don't know. I don't want to say focused, but like get yourself to do stuff, right? Yeah. Like when you— okay, so how have you tackled that problem?

Still working on it. Okay. Um, but I think really using my calendar, um, and sticking to it, like giving myself time to go to the gym has been important. Um, but then like saying like, okay, I'm gonna do, you know, 3 hours of like super focused work, not really leaving my desk on this day, this day, whatever, like, and sticking to it, blocking my calendar to do that has been really really helpful.

So really giving yourself a process. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that. Okay, um, you said that— did you say that you had— you said you had white-labeled Dubsado for some people.

So just want to make sure, like, when you talk about white labeling, you're talking about like having— instead of it being like hello.dubsado.com, it's like portal.kimbargo.com, right? Correct. Yes. Yes. Okay.

Yes. And where have you chosen to do that versus I'm going to go into your Dubsado account and do the work?

I think it really like client by client, it depends on their tech savviness for the white labeling. It's not like that difficult to do. And sometimes like getting Getting into people's accounts for like their GoDaddy— getting into someone's GoDaddy account is a real pain. And if I'm trying to— sometimes it's easier to just give them instructions and say, here, like, go do this. It'll take them 3 minutes. But if the person is like super not like computer savvy, it's worth the time to know that like it'll get taken care of. So I kind of do that on like a case-by-case.

Do most of the people show up with Dubsado accounts already?

Um, no, I'd say about— at least my clients, no, most of them don't. I've had a few come in with Dubsado accounts that they're feeling very lost in, um, but most of them are coming in with like virtually no systems and DubSado ends up being a recommendation that I give for the majority, at least for like my wedding clients, because it just works well.

Yeah, I just see this tremendous opportunity for you to craft this done-for-you service on your white-labeled site where they don't, I mean, you know, they may have the ability to do it, uh, technologically, but they, they definitely don't want to do it. I can promise you that. I mean, like, the last thing I want to do is go get into another software. Like, I, I, I hate learning curves of software. Um, uh, and, and this kind of speaks to what I've talked about in this program several times, is that entrepreneurs, your job, our job, is to solve problems. Um, And I think we get stuck in our own minds about what that process looks like and what we think the steps are and the features and benefits. And that makes the marketing harder. And like, at the end of the day, if you can clearly define what the problem is, the way the customer or client describes it, and give them a solution in terms that they understand and then develop the service around it, that's where you really find the magic. So if you were going to define that problem as— so sticking with the lead generation, right? If you were in managing that, if you were going to define that the way your customer or the prospects that come to you How did they describe it?

Their problem or the solution? Their problem. I would say their problem is that their proposal process or their lead process is just sucking up too much of their time and they don't feel like it's streamlined. They don't feel like it looks professional.

Okay, what, what does that result in for them?

In other words, because of the problem, because—

yes, what then, what is the symptom that arises?

Uh, I think like the constant mental load of needing to spend the time and the energy on doing something that, like, stresses them out, quite frankly.

Mhm.

Mhm.

Um, do, do you think potentially they, uh, lose business because of it?

I mean, if it takes them 2 weeks to get a proposal back, sure.

But that's not—

which a lot of the time it is.

Oh, okay. All right. So, so it's, it's, it's stress, it's lost revenue.

Yeah.

Um, Anything else?

Not that I can pinpoint right now.

Okay. And then how would you describe your solution in their terms?

The solution is that their inquiry process is going to be as automated as possible and the manual steps— well, I don't know if I'd describe it like this to them. Yeah, right. I'm not going to say that. Um, I would talk about how it's going to be seamless for them and feel smoother and faster and less stressful.

Yeah. So I'm thinking, yes, like you're going to manage this for me and I'm, I'm going to get all of my proposals out timely, professionally. And I don't have to worry about it, like that stress component.

Yeah, right.

And that's key when you're— we've, we've run into this so much in, in our business of like not defining the solution the way they understand it or that really resonates with them. We, we complicate— again, I'm talking about CORE. We've complicated things because— have you read Donald Miller's StoryBrand? No. Okay. Highly recommend that book.

Okay.

Noted. Donald was a writer. He was a screenwriter, and he kind of accidentally got into the marketing business. And what he determined as a writer was that all good, all compelling marketing follows a story, and it's a storyline, and it presents the hero of the story having to solve a problem. And the, the marketing with the hero, the client or the customer is the hero, whereas we tend to make ourselves the hero in the marketing by saying, this is what we're really good at, this is what we're going to do, as opposed to shifting it to they're, they're the hero and we're just the guide. So his, his description in his book uses Star Wars because that's one everybody knows. Luke Skywalker is the hero, and he's got a problem, and he's got to fight the Empire, right? And along comes Obi-Wan Kenobi, who is going to guide him, right? But ultimately, Luke has to make the decision and do the thing himself. Itself. And we, as the solution provider, position ourselves as the guide, right? We're not the hero of the story. And that becomes, for us, the challenge has always been, but yeah, but we want to tell them how we do it, or we want to tell them how good we are at it. And the reality is, is there really just has to be that trust, Luke didn't know Obi-Wan's past. As a matter of fact, Obi-Wan was pretty shady about it. He was kind of hidden with it. But there was some level of resonance and trust that he was like, okay, I'm going to do what this guy tells me to do. And that's what we have to do in marketing our services is not tell them how whiz-bang great we are or all the features and benefits. It's about building the trust.

Yeah. So more so focused on like the outcome and how they're going to feel versus the checklist of things that I'm going to do for them and how I'm going to do it. Like they don't care how, they just want it done.

Right. And it's like, you know, as soon as you speak to that, like, you know, here's, you're the hero and this is your problem. They're like, oh yeah, he gets me.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, or she gets me. Sorry, that was kind of sexist.

Um, it's okay, they get you, right?

Whatever, whatever floats your boat. Yes. Um, any challenges around money in starting your business besides the not having recurring revenue? Because that's a huge one, and I don't want to— I don't want to skip over that because having recurring revenue is probably the biggest problem to solve as creatives, right? Getting away from the project or hourly model. But any other challenges around that?

Um, I think generally speaking, like, I— and I still probably don't really know what I'm doing from like a money perspective with a business. Um, we have— my husband and I have a financial advisor who like knew I was leaving teaching and kind of knew this year or the second half of this year might be a little like lower income than we're used to. And he helped us strategize and all that. Um, and I have a CPA who helps me with my taxes and all that. So like for me, I outsource money things because I don't know what I'm doing. And I am trying to learn, but like I try to get in the room with people that know what they're doing and ask them questions, and hopefully they're gentle with their responses. Um, but yeah, like, that's obviously a big piece of it, and that's, that's kind of where I'm at, is I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm trying to figure it out and having people help me as I go.

Yeah, and, and I, I think it's not just creative entrepreneurs. Virtually every entrepreneur is, starts out financially illiterate, right?

Yeah.

Most of them resist learning it. But what I found as an entrepreneur, this is my coming— January will be my 29th year. What I've learned is that as the entrepreneur, as the business owner, you have to know— I have to know a little bit about a lot of things, right? You know, marketing, legal, HR, marketing, pricing, accounting. You know, there's all of these, all of these things that I didn't know I needed to know that I sometimes very expensively paid for. You know, in hard lessons. But I think that there is a basic level of understanding of financial literacy that every entrepreneur has to have. And if they're going to succeed, if they're going to sustain, they will learn. I mean, they're not going to have a choice. But I think being proactive about that level of understanding is key. And here's where, where it really came home to me. So, uh, a long time ago, I got very frustrated, uh, running an accounting business, and I left it with, uh, my brother, who was my partner at the time. I said, you handle this, I'm gonna go do a software startup, because why not? Um, and I, I, uh went into the world of programming and programmers, right? And I immediately understood that in order for me to even talk to these programmers and communicate what I needed done, I was going to have to learn some basic programming. Now, I hadn't touched a computer programming since I was, you know, probably 13. And so I went in and I learned Ruby, which is an odd language to learn, sufficient enough that I could understand what the programmer was talking about, what was possible, what was not possible. Not that I was going to be writing code, but that I could have this conversation with this individual and it be productive. And that's when I learned this concept of knowing enough. Like, it's not— I'm not going to be an expert, but I have to know enough to talk to the people that are doing the work that I can communicate with them in a constructive way. Yeah. And that's why I wrote the book Profit First for Creatives. Not because I'm going to make you a financial expert, but it's going to give you at least enough information to have a conversation with the financial professional that it's meaningful and productive, as opposed to like, I sure hope they're doing it right.

Yeah, I need to read your book.

Well, you know what, I'm going to send you a copy, so there you go.

Oh great, thank you, that sounds great.

Yes. Um, Kim, how do people find you if they want to work with you?

You can find me at my website, kimvargo.com, or you can find me on Instagram. Kim Vargo Dot Co is my handle. I'm also on like Facebook and LinkedIn, but I think Instagram and my website are probably the best ways. Or you can email me, hello@kimvargo.com.

Awesome. We'll have those links in the show notes for you listeners. If you like what you heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you've heard, shoot us a message, tell us what you'd like to hear, and I'll get rid of Kim. Until then, ta-ta for now.