254: Choosing the Right Software Platforms - #GrowYourLife

Hey, everyone, thanks for listening to the Grow youw Life podcast. My name is Jeremiah Krakowski, and on this podcast I talk about ways that you can grow your coaching business, your mentoring business, creating online courses, and how to impact people on a much deeper level and create an incredible income at the same time while doing that. Now, today, I want to talk about making the decision on what software is best to use. And what I want to do is I want to start with an example, a diagram that I'm going to draw up here to explain where some people struggle when it comes to software. If you've been online for any length of time, you know that there are so many different kinds of software that we have access to that's being marketed to you, sold to the best this, the better that. Everything's this. This has the feature, oh, this is the answer to everything you've been looking for. And we've even built multiple industries in our stock market. It's propped up on better, better, better growing over time. The problem is this can get into our mind and cause us to question what it takes to actually get started in a business and which software to use. The belief that things can get better if I just move over to something else. And then Shiny Object Syndrome is a real thing where something new comes along, some new methods, some new technique, things like that. In fact, that's really what I want to talk about in depth here, and we go deeper into it. I want to help you make a decision of what software to use. I want you to help you decide which path to take in your business. But I also want you to realize that Shiny Object Syndrome in general is not necessarily a healthy thing. I believe that we can improve things over time, iteratively, but what you wait to do can only hurt you. Let me explain this. So a lot of people think that if they just get everything perfect, they use the perfect software, they use the perfect system, platform, the perfect way to do everything, that that's going to produce the best results. And it's not. In fact, studies show and, well, my own experience of working with thousands of coaches and mentors show that in fact, not only is this not wise, it actually is probably the most detrimental thing that you can do. And yet it's what most people think is the best thing to do. So we have a problem here, is that the best choice, and what do we define as the best choice? The best choice for a mentor and coach is what I believe has the highest level of impact for your clients and produces the highest amount of revenue for Your business, and we define it by these two metrics right here. Okay? Client impact and results. I believe not all coaches, coaching programs or mentorship are made the same way. And not all coaches are capable of producing impact transformation and getting results for their clients. They simply don't know how they can fake it. They can try, but they miss the mark. And then finances is really an important part about it because you can increase your impact and the scale of the amount of people that you reach simply by dialing in the finances so that you have more resources to spend. You know, I have a video game that I play. It's called the Battle for Polytopia. Don't shut your mind off because I mentioned that it's a video game. In the game, you grow in resources and you can beat the game simply by maximizing your economy. What most people don't realize is that this is how business works as well. And yet we live in a world right now that is so focused in on being the best, doing the best, and doing the best by all people. Okay? So I'm not going to go into a socioeconomic debate around that. But I simply believe that optimizing for profit is actually how you have the most amount of impact. Okay? The problem with this is that most people are looking for software platforms that are looking for training programs, mentorship programs. They're looking for systems. Gosh, you go out there and shop for a car these days, you look for a house, and they're looking for the cheapest and best. When it comes to building a business, they're also looking for the easiest and simplest. And so most people are looking for something that simply does not exist on planet Earth. The cheapest, the best and the simplest. When it comes to use. You know, I can think about this when it comes to buying a house, for example, right? The cheapest house is often not going to be the best or the simplest. There's going to need to be repairs. Right. The best house, by no means is ever going to be the cheapest, but it could be the simplest sometimes. And the most simplest turnkey thing. Well, oftentimes it may not be the best. It may be the easiest to get into, and it may also not be the cheapest. Okay, that's not necessarily the best example, but I want to use that example when it comes to software. Okay? So a lot of people, I find they're trying to balance features, benefits, cost, simplicity, having the best features. And generally marketers will utilize, say, ours is better than the competitor. The problem is they're all Basically saying that they're better. And people are usually looking for better and simpler, but that often doesn't align with being cheaper. Okay? And so when it comes to software, here's my rule of thumb. When it comes to business, here's my rule of thumb. When it comes to most things in life, I think this is our rule of thumb. You know, I can look at upgrading computers and cell phones and things like that. The one that you use consistently, that you show up to use consistently, is oftentimes the best one that you can choose. It may not be the best on the market, it may not be this the cheapest, but it's the one that you can use. And what I find is often the case. Most coaches and mentors that I meet, most people that are out there, they are massively overwhelmed by the complexity of most things. And the way that it goes usually is they're setting out to build a business and they're sitting on their idea for so long because of complexity. There's a book that I read called Extreme Ownership by Jocko willink, how the U.S. navy SEALs lead and win. And he talks about the fact that it's removing features, removing complexity that actually produces the best results. Oftentimes, the best does not include the most complete. And I find that when it comes to course creators and coaches, what we're striving for, looking for is to have the most complete package. It does everything. It saves us the most amount of money, it has all the features, and then somebody else pops up and they do this. So there's really two factors that I want to discuss here. Number one, deciding on which platform to use. Okay, I'll tell you this. There's really a very simple matrix when it comes to what most people prioritize things around, which is cost. Okay? And so oftentimes, cost and simplicity are almost a directly opposing moving scale. Okay. So oftentimes, as cost goes up for software, when it comes to building your business for systems and things like that, the simplicity comes down. Okay. Or I guess the complexity. Yeah, the complexity comes down. Okay, so it can cost more, but it'll be less complex. It likes to be more simple. Cost and simplicity, I guess, would rise in the same direction. Complexity would come down as cost comes down, such as, like, the cheapest softwares and things like that. The complexity goes up and the simplicity goes down. Why? Because oftentimes what we're actually paying for is shrinking timelines. And in business, that is really what creates most of the businesses that we live in today, is what creates Efficiency, what shrinks down the amount of time that it takes to get from point A to point B. Okay. And so oftentimes, people are willing to end them in the marketplace. Pay for simplicity. Now you can make the argument that capitalism as a whole is a scourge on the earth, and it's the problem as to why things cost so much for simplicity. I actually believe that there, it's a great thing, it's an incredible vehicle. And the alternative, Marxism and communism are not good options for us. Why? And you might say, well, Jeremiah, don't you care about other people? Of course. In fact, I think that capitalism is one of the best vehicles to raise people out of poverty to improve their lives overall long term. In fact, evidence shows this over the last couple hundred years. You know, close to 95% of the population was in poverty until capitalism came in, and that comes down to about 5%. Okay. So the marketplace, the fact that cost is a factor related to simplicity, which sometimes people see as gatekeeping. And there's, there's, gosh, there's so many arguments as to why you can get so angry at all of this. I would just say, listen, if you're feeling angry and upset by the way the world is, that's a distraction in life and, and it's distracting you from being effective. Okay. And so I'm not gonna even really have that conversation. I've, I've actually come to a place in my life where I don't argue with people that are just angry at how the world is and, and, and just think that everything should just be better than it really is, and it's just so bad and all that. Like, those aren't people that I'm looking for. I'm looking for people that have optimism, people that are seeing things, the world, as the glass half full, not half empty. And in fact, while there might be great people that see the world that way and they have their place, they're not people that I want to hang around. And as a coach or mentor, I think that they can be more of a drain on your business overall, because I think that we need to have optimism, and I think that we need to think optimistically instead of out of a scarcity mindset. I think that we need to think out of abundance and not that of, oh, man, things are not so good and start to actually think in a way that is aligned with what's going to actually get us our results. Can I tell you this? Expecting things to go well for you is a good way of thinking. Some people See it as delusional. Some people may argue that you are confident in things that aren't true. I'm sorry, but any sort of logical framework that people come up with as to why this is, while their arguments may make sense in reality, when you actually go to apply them for effectiveness, they crumble and they don't actually produce results. They don't actually work. And so really, what I find that the most effective thing is, is to keep an optimistic outlook even when things don't go how we, quote, unquote, think they should. Okay, so when it comes to cost, when it comes to capitalism, when it comes to the marketplace, when it comes to software, when it comes to all of these things, when it comes to our frustration in life, can we talk about that? Can we talk about the frustration that we existentially feel when things don't go how we want? That's a choice. It's a choice to think differently as well. And it's a choice to see things differently. And so oftentimes what I encourage people to do is this, they are in a constant pursuit for better, more optimized, cheaper, and simpler all at the same time. And they're seeking something that is unreasonable and unrealistic. And I am a firm believer in having very big goals while simultaneously shrinking them down to the present moment of what is reality. Okay, and so what I love to look at is let's dream massively big. What. What would be the best case scenario in all fronts, this utopian vision of everything, Right? Okay, now we come back down to reality and we look at how can we just get one step further than where we are right now? And that's what I like. That's how I like to look at life. That's how I like to look at product development. In fact, you know, if we look at what could be and then what is, oftentimes just improving by one degree is actually all that's needed in creating products. And that's actually how a lot of the products that we have exist 10, 15, 20 years from now with AI extrapolated out. I guarantee you a lot of what I'm saying in this podcast is not even gonna be relevant. I think that you will have the best and cheapest and simplest. And marketing is gonna look so different in 15 to 20 years from now that half of what I teach is gonna be completely irrelevant. But knowing myself, I will keep you up to date and I'll make sure that you know how to stay ahead of the curve and have a cutting edge advantage over the World around us. Okay? And so here's one of the things that I want to encourage you with. Stop seeking the cheapest option. Okay? Now, I understand if you are coming out of complete poverty, you have no money whatsoever. You can't even pay the bills or anything. Okay? Cheapest option might be great because it can pull you out of poverty. There's actually a platform right now that's out there. It's called System A IO. And using System A IO is pretty cool because you can actually get a free account with them. And it's not a gimmick when they say that it's free. It's actually like legitimately free. I've used the free account and they really give you a lot of incredible tools. I think it's really cool what they provide you with. The. The, like, the depth of what they actually give you for free is. Is amazing. Okay? And so in this, however, realize that as you grow, most people are going to need their $27 tier. As far as this goes, okay? Now you look at a software that's out there, like Kajabi. Kajabi is priced at $400 a month. As far as this goes, this I would consider one of the best platforms that are out there, but they're not the cheapest. There is one that I think is pretty cool. It's called Go High Level. It is probably one of the best overall, but the complexity is crazy because of how much it does. And I find that a lot of people get really addicted to this chart right here around what things do, and they want it to do everything. And they are more excited about the fact that it does everything than what they can do with it. And so this is why I encourage most people that when they're marketing their business, not to seek after the cheapest option, but to seek after what is going to save them. Time and effort and delays and procrastination. And so oftentimes, as a coach and mentor, what we need to really optimize is for our own procrastination habits. Now, you can justify procrastination all you want, whether it be a spirit of excellence or wisdom or the need to, you know, do everything right and all of that, again, I understand maybe that's your personality. But at the end of the day, I can tell you this as somebody who has been in this industry for a long time, Things evolve very quickly. And the problem is that by the time you learn everything, something else has come along. And so speed, I believe, is important. We need to prioritize speed. When it comes to building a business, especially today, especially in a world with artificial intelligence. And what I mean by speed is speed to actually get something up in your business. Now, oftentimes this causes anxiety in people because they feel like, well, what if it's not good enough? What if it's not better enough? And we keep going back to this loop of believing that things need to be at some certain arbitrary level of perfection before it's good enough to put out there publicly to the rest of the world. Can I tell you, this doesn't matter. It literally doesn't matter. What matters most is getting something up, getting something going, connecting with a group of people. What I would rather you do, simply put, gather a hundred people in front of you, maybe 200 in a Zoom call or on a recorded video. Teach them something. Now, here's the. Now, here's the thing. In a group of 100 to 200 people, chances are that about five to 10 of them strongly disagree with what you're going to teach and actually feel like they have a better way and they want to tell you that you're wrong, exists. You're going to have a lot of people that say that. That's a huge common thing. So then a lot of people shrink back and they wait until everything's perfect. They don't do anything. The problem, though, that I see more often than not is people do nothing. And they sit around with this mindset of, I'm going to make it better, I'm going to improve it, it's going to come and become better over time. Long term, things are going to improve, and then someday I'm going to arrive where I finally feel good enough to put things out there, to where the risk of criticism and disappointing others is so low that then I finally feel confident enough to launch my business. And many times this is connected to a belief that confidence is tied to what we do and quote, unquote, absolute truth versus the process of doing things over time. Confidence in business is a lot more like learning to ride a bike. You have to get on the bike and fall down and skin your knee. And by doing that enough times, you'll get confident enough to reach your goals. Many people are waiting until they've studied enough and they feel good enough and they've tested it all out for free before they actually put something out there and start charging money for it. And really what this is, is this would be the mindset of a child who's waiting until they're an expert, you know, motocross rider before they Even get on a tricycle. You know, in fact, that thinking is delusional. And I don't mean this to be harsh to anybody, but a lot of people are actually operating in what they believe is wisdom. And it's actually very much delusional. Thinking is that that someday things are going to get so good that they'll finally be ready. Yet the truth is, is that there's always room for improvement. And so waiting until things are perfect before you put something out there is not wisdom. In fact, it's probably one of the worst things that you can do. In my experience, there are many people that will argue against what I've just said. They'll. They'll argue. And I even know based on what I'm saying, there are some people that think that what I'm telling you is just a justification for apathy and launching low quality products. That all they do is produce disappointment and hurt people and are just contributing to the ever growing noise of low quality drivel that's out there in the world. I disagree with that. And I actually think that if you have an intention to make impact and income your goal, you'll reach your results. And so what that takes is what allows you when it comes to your software, because that's what this is about. What does it take for you to actually be consistent and not procrastinate? Okay, and that's the point that I've been trying to get to here. I took a long way to get here. We took the long route, we took the scenic route. But I'm making a point for the fact that sometimes you may want to use a software that costs just a little bit more, but improves the simplicity by exponential amounts. And that also comes when it comes to possibly even hiring people. You may want to spend just a little bit more money to hire somebody to do something so that you're not trying to figure it out totally on your own. When it comes to Facebook ads is a way to do this. Hiring a mentor for a fee. Like we have my accelerator program, you know, we have our coaching program and we have our training. And what that does is when people hire me as a mentor and coach, it saves them time, it accelerates how quickly they can actually start to get results. And that's what our clients see is they go from struggling to things starting to come together for them. You know, oftentimes I have clients, they tell me, jeremiah, I've tried everything. I tried every course, every program, every possible way to be successful until I came to you. And then I started Working with you. And I saw results. And that lights me up because it tells me it proves every single client success story validates, improves our system even more. And I love hearing stories like that. Now, is every client that I have a million dollar success story? No. In fact, I have clients that have been in my program for a year and haven't made a dime. Oh, no, Jeremiah, does that mean that you're not legit? How can you think that? That's ethical, right? Some people think that that's an ethical flaw on my part to allow them to stay in there. I talked with a lady about this the other day, and she said, here's the thing, Jeremiah. My business hasn't grown, but every other part of my life has. And I finally feel confident enough to put myself out there. And I didn't know what I didn't know when I got started with you. And now I actually really feel ready to do things. And so I know that some people may go through a journey where it takes them the long way to feel confident, to reach their goals. I meet a lot of people that are. That are like that. They have so much potential, they have so much incredible things that they could do to impact people. They could change the world. And yet they're sitting on their goals because of the need to feel good. Enough about it. Can I tell you this? Oftentimes we don't feel peaceful about the moves that we need to make. Oftentimes they feel risky. Oftentimes they feel stressful. Oftentimes they feel like a struggle. But when we step out, when we take a leap of faith, when we say, you know what? I might not have it all figured out, but I'm going to jump and build the parachute as I fall down. And can I tell you this? That can be scary. I'm not going to negate that fact. That can be terrifying, in fact, for some people. But growing in the confidence to where you don't let that fear stop you and you actually learn to become comfortable with what felt scary. Can I tell you this? That oftentimes what it takes to be successful is doing the thing that feels the most terrifying and actually starting to embrace what felt terrifying at one time to where it actually feels very exciting for you. You know, me making this podcast used to be terrifying when I started. I used to have to take shots of alcohol just to even have the confidence to talk with you. And now, you know, I haven't drank in years. And I feel great sharing and sharing from my heart and, and expanding on big ideas and and, and, and I'm not worried about how anybody's going to take it or perceive it or if it's going to land wrong or things like that or, or the perception. I do not concern myself with the perception of what other people think about me at all do I concern myself with coming across, understandably, not overwhelming people being way too complex, of course. But that's an iterative process and that's something that I'm improving on over time. You know, some of you are listening to this episode. Maybe you've listened to other podcasts of mine. Maybe you're making a judgment. Either what I've talked about was too complex and you're like, Jeremiah, you could have gotten to your point quicker. Okay, great, awesome. Probably could have. I'm going to get better. Others of you are like, wow, that was so much more concise than I've ever heard you teach. And that's the thing. You're not going to please everybody. You're not going to be the favorite flavor of the week for everybody. People love Apple, people love Android. But what you're going to be is you're going to be the right person for the people that absolutely love working with you. And what that is is people who. Their fire is lit up simply by being in your presence. So hopefully, if you're listening to this podcast right now, you are somebody whose fire is lit up by listening to me. If that's the case, I would love to invite you to join me on some of our live events that we're hosting. I'd love to invite you to join me in my accelerator program when we open the doors to it, and I want to encourage you in this. Again, when it comes to choosing the best software, you notice I didn't necessarily tell you what the best software to use is. I'll tell you what my favorite is for most people, if maybe you've been looking for this. At the end of this, my favorite is Squarespace. Why do I like Squarespace? Because it's, in my opinion, the best balance between cost and simplicity for most people to use. For most people to figure out if you can use Microsoft Word, you can use Squarespace to launch a funnel, to launch your marketing, to get clients, and to sell things. Now, there are other tools that are out there. You know, we're exploring some of them. I'm taking a look at them, but I still haven't found anything that has changed my mind about being on Squarespace. You know, we started back in the day doing pure HTML. I remember I built my first website on HTML, I coded everything. This was actually when I was 7 years old. And a lot of people don't know that part of my story. Some of you are like, wow, this is easy for you because you've been coding since you were a kid. Yeah, I have been, and I understand that. But, like, you know, that was hard. You know, we had to build websites by like, we use a tool that you could drag and drop, but it would create code and you had to know the code and all that. Then WordPress came up and you could. At least it had a structure that was easier to use. And then there was visual editors that popped up for WordPress. Then all these platforms came up to where basically they would run the logistics behind the scenes of all the tech stuff, and they would just give you access to all the tools. The problem is now a lot of those have ballooned in their complexity, and more and simpler tools are popping up every single day. I'll tell you this, I love that. I think it's great. I think new, simple tools are great. But here's the problem. If you're going from tool to tool to tool because you have shiny object syndrome and you can't seem to commit to one thing, that's a problem and it's not helping you. And so what I would encourage you to do is commit to using something, commit to using a tool, commit to one niche in your business, commit to one possible marketing plan, one coach, one mentor, and see what happens. After six months to a year, instead of jumping away, just jumping ship after just a couple of months of things getting hard, realize that maybe you can grow in these ways and maybe, just maybe, things can get better. I'll encourage you. Use what's the simplest of tools. Overall, it's always worth it. However, as well, if cost is a problem, you know, you can find cheaper stuff that's out there, but it's gonna be harder for you to use. If you're looking for the most features, it's probably not the simplest to use. Even if it's the best thing, Even if it's. Even if it's the best, you want to find what's best for you, and what's best for you may not be the best for somebody else. And that's oftentimes what we really need to realize is that it's really about individual best. You know, for some people, playing video games is a bad thing. For some people, it would hurt them, it would damage their family. There's people that see it as irresponsible to their families to play video games. For me, playing video games is actually part of my creative process as a business owner. And I've actually integrated it into my day and structure to include video game playing time. Some people would see that as, wow, you're neglecting your wife and kids for doing that. No, I'm not. In fact, I'm providing a better life for them by playing video games. And I hold to that belief. And it's something that there's nobody that can ever change my mind on that anymore. I've had people try, but I see the fruit of it. I see the fruit in the lives of my clients, my ability to serve them, my ability to build my business is the more I play video games, the better everything is. And it's just, it's an irrefutable fact that I've been trying to prove wrong for probably the last, oh, 10 years. And I, it just, I seem to become more and more solidified in that belief. And my wife always encourages me that if I'm struggling to be creative, she's like, go play a video game. She's like, go, go place Madden. Go play some Polytopia. Go play something like that. And so can I tell you this, that what works best for an individual may not be the best for somebody else, but we got to figure out what individually works best for us. Okay? And what works best for us is often what serves to not encourage procrastination, what serves to not encourage us taking longer to get things done. Efficiency is great and I think that it's an important thing. Speed in business is important and I think that you can combine speed, impact income and produce massive results with people by taking what I call an iterative alpha release approach to building your course. Mentorship or membership business. This last point that I'm going to share on this, an alpha release approach is this in the software world it's called releasing an under development version of software that's used for initial testing, which means that it's in the early stage. What I want you to do in your business is you might not have everything complete to put out there to launch, but it might have one or two features that can impact people and you might know that I can improve it over time. There's no lack of integrity by you releasing that and being 100% honest and transparent about the fact that, hey, we're improving this over time. Sure. Might some people not like it, they might not trust you, they might even demonize and condemn you for it. But you got to Stop worrying about what other people think, stop trying to not disappoint people, stop trying to do everything perfect. And realize that consistency over time is what produces the very best results in our business. If you can stay consistent at putting stuff out there, at reaching people, at finding the people that need a specific thing that you can help them with, that can build you a multi six and seven figure business. And I would challenge you on this. Money solves all your problems. If you increase your revenue to 40 to 60 thousand dollars a month, you have no problems in your business whatsoever today or your life. You can literally live pretty much anywhere in just about any type of house you want, have team members that run everything for you, not be in debt up to your ears, have an incredible like, go out to eat whenever you want, do all that. You're not even necessarily making a million dollars a year, but you're making enough that you have options. And you can speed up how long it takes you to get to the next level. And you can buy simplicity, you can buy access to knowledge, you can buy access to skill sets. One of the things that we need to do is realize that we need to increase our income in our world today. The economy is not getting better and things are getting more expensive. Expensive. Increasing your income is a must for the future. And I will tell you this, that my business grew when I stopped trying to be the cheapest, when I stopped trying to be cheap, when I stopped trying to only use cheap things, and when I started to be willing to pay just a little bit more for simplicity. You know, I used to buy the cheapest cars that had the best features, but they would break all the time. And I started paying just a little bit more for a car that had a warranty that I could make sure, feel confident putting my wife and son in, that I wouldn't break down on them on the road and that we could take it in somewhere to have it fixed. There are some people that share an opinion that that's completely financially irresponsible. But it was the best for me and it worked. And I feel confident. And I actually think that that choice that I made in 2020, 20 to buy a Dodge Ram that had a great warranty on it, that, you know, we knew we were going to get pregnant. We, we were planning for the future of this. In fact, you know, my wife did get pregnant for two more years after that, but it was actually about a year and a half after that. But we were planning for that when we actually purchased that vehicle. And that's what we thought is we wanted something that I knew would be simple because we were done with dealing with cars that were breaking down all the time. And I grew up in a household where, you know, breaking down a car and fixing it all the time and all that was way of life. And in fact I have the knowledge to literally strip a motor down and rebuild it. I know how to do that. I've done it before a couple times. But it was a distraction from my calling, which was to build a business to be successful. Can I tell you this? My income has gone up and my life has changed and yours can as well. When you learn to just a have more fun in life, be just do what works best for you and figure out what you can optimize for that doesn't create procrastination and allows you to move the needle forward. It's a little bit faster than you already are right now. Instead of just going from zero to a hundred, doing the compound effect where you go from zero to one and then one to three and then three to six, six to nine, nine to twelve. And compounding over time, improving over time, an iterative process. That's how our lives change. That's how our lives improve. Oftentimes short. Making giant massive changes can do a lot of stuff, but it's not necessarily always sustainable. And so when you can figure out what can I sustain, it may not be perfect. You could have room for improvement. But embracing that room for improvement as great thing and a beautiful thing, that's where greatness comes from. Alright, so I hope this encourages you, I hope it inspires you. And if you're still listening to this, make sure to share it with somebody. Make sure to plug in. Subscribe. Follow me. I have new episodes every single week that have great ideas and incredible advice and I think you'll really like them. We host live events all the time to help coaches, mentors, people create membership sites, recurring income for themselves. So you can have a consistent income of 40 to 60 thousand dollars a month. I think that that's incredible, right? And I think it's a great place to get to. That's between a half a million to $750,000 a year. And that's life changing money right there. Even if you're not at that level and you just want to maybe make 50 to 100,000. I'll show you how to get there. All right. So grow your life. We'll talk soon. Have a.