Brave Biz Labs 2024 12 13

Hi, Yvonne.

Good morning.

Good morning. How are you?

I am well, thank you. How are you?

I'm freezing.

How cold.

I. I finally put on, like, my insulated leggings that, like, are meant for going out in sub zero temperatures and I'm still cold.

Do you guys have snow?

No. Not even. Yeah, it's just, it's, you know, old house and cold and drafty and, you know, all things 37 degrees here.

So that's pretty brisk for around here too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know.

Yeah.

Anyway, what are you celebrating this week?

I am celebrating that I had an incredible experience crewing a six day Tony Robbins event.

Oh, my gosh.

So not only did I get to participate, but I got to be behind the scenes and help others with their stuff. It was like a whole new level. I did the same event last year with, with Jeff and it was like life changing. And so now doing it kind of from the inside was really, really cool. So I have a bit of a, like Tony Robbins hangover.

Yeah, I've heard it. It's exhausting.

It is. I mean, it's. It's by design. Right. Like, there are parts of him, you either love him or hate him. It's kind of very divisive. But he. It's kind of by design. He wears you out so that you're, you know, that you're. So that you're in an influenceable state. That's not a word in a state.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like brainwashing, but in a good way.

Yeah, yeah, it's. I mean, his whole methodology is like, like mental abuse tactics used for your own good.

Yeah.

You know.

Well, and he's a very aggressive type person. Right. Like, it works for many people. It works for me. You know, for some people, that's not. It's not the right path. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff of his that I don't agree with. But again, take what works for you and leave the rest. Right?

Yeah, absolutely.

He's definitely. I mean, he's done this for 45 years, so he's doing something right.

Yeah. And you know, just. I mean, seeing the business model of it is just incredible.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Awesome. So when did it wrap up?

It wrapped up Wednesday. It was last Friday through Wednesday.

Okay, cool.

I mean, they were crazy. Like, the first day was 17 hours and the rest of the days were no shorter than 14 hours. It was insane.

That's. Yeah, that's aggressive.

Like, my house is a mess. I haven't done laundry in a week.

I Can imagine. And it's virtual.

I did virtual. So he does hybrid now. So there were 3,000 people live and 3,000 people virtual. I supported the virtual back end. Yeah.

Okay, cool.

Awesome.

Yeah.

All right, well, you survived that. And yeah, what? I. I know a few people can't make it today, so is there anything you want to cover if we end up doing this one on one?

Well, just FYI, when I clicked on the event, it originally popped up and said, this event is scheduled for November.

15Th, you know, where we've raised a ticket with Heartbe. I don't know why it started doing that, but yes, we're aware and thank you for telling me. And Heartbeat, I think they're updating stuff on the back end and then things are getting wonky and then they have to clean it up. So if, if anything happens that, like, is weird on your end, if you don't mind taking a screenshot and sending it to me just so we have things to send them to fix.

Okay, we'll do.

Thank you.

Yeah.

So.

So I am continuing to work on what I talked to you about last time. I'm collaborating with kind of peer coworker, and we're putting out this kind of webinar. We're actually doing a live. So it's like a live sneak, like 30 minute sneak peek. Then we're offering like a free PDF for anybody who attends or takes notes of that. Then we're offering kind of the upsell of here's the full booklet and then a workshop.

Okay.

So we're putting the finishing touches on that. I'm curious. Whether I need to start offering more, like, lower ticket come in type stuff.

I mean, I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think so. So, because here's the thing, like.

You.

Know, if you had a hundred thousand followers, I'd say yes.

Yeah, like, go for it.

Because you have, you know, people who are like, probably ready to buy something from you, but you're not that point yet. And if you introduce something else right now, then what is going to cannibalize your higher ticket offer?

Yeah, right.

And so what you want to do is you want to just, like, continue beating the drum about, like, the problems your clients have, the pain they're experiencing, the things that they want. And by the way, I help with that. And then here's the pain and here's the desire. And by the way, here's a case study. And by the way, I help you get there. And here's this. And by the way, I help with this.

Yeah.

Right. Yeah, yeah.

And then when you say. When you say you're gonna do a live. Talk me through this. Like, the nitty gritty steps that people are gonna have to interact with it.

Well, we're going to talk about the. The kind of pains of annual review time. Right. Of writing the review for however many people. So this is more towards, you know, managers or leaders, the pain of writing the review process of, like, giving balanced feedback, some of the worries that they have.

Sorry, I. I want to ask the question in a different way then, because. So how are people getting to the live. Like, what, What. What's the. The technical setup you're imagining?

I was just going to do a LinkedIn event.

Okay. Okay. So. So it's not going to be a webinar. It's going to be a live.

Yeah. Do you think we should change that?

I think it needs to be a webinar, because here's the thing. Like, alive. Like, you're not going to be able to see who attended unless they liked it or commented on it.

Yeah.

Right. And you're not going to have people to follow up with because you're not collecting their email address.

Yeah. Right.

And you can absolutely do lives leading up to it to promote the webinar.

Oh, good idea.

Yeah.

You know, I think that is actually a great. And I think it's like, you know, you. You both talking about challenging feedback situations, you know, so that people can be like, oh, my God, I've had that situation before. And you could even do like, one story per day where you're leading up to the webinar and you're just constantly telling people, by the way, you know, as we're talking through this problem, and you want to just, like every few minutes you want to just drop it in. Like, by the way, we're actually offering a webinar where we teach you how to give feedback for situations like this that are really challenging.

Yeah.

You know, so that you get a good outcome at the. At the end of the day or the end of the month, end of the year, whatever. But, yeah, I think alive. You're just. It's one of those things. Lives are kind of like, I'm shoving stuff at you, and then you're just trusting that it's going to come back. For something like this, that's not enough.

Okay, Right.

You want to invite people in and then funnel them through.

Right.

Because even, even people who register and don't show up, you know, you can follow up with them. You can say, here's here's. The recording, by the way. We also have this thing because otherwise you have a bunch of people who, like, might watch the live and then you have no way of following up with them to specifically offer them the packet or the one on one session.

Yep.

Yeah.

How? I've never run a webinar.

Yeah.

So, like, do you use Acuity to set it up like a class?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So use Acuity. Set it up like a class. And then what I do is I set the. I get a zoom link and I use that for the reminder emails.

Okay.

That go out.

So you create the zoom first.

Just like a. Yeah, just make a zoom. A zoom room link and then use that for the reminder emails. And you want to set up 24 hours, 12 hours and one hour.

Yeah.

Right. And then anyone who's already on your list and already on your partner's list, they get the zoom link automatically. They get. Hey, we're having this webinar. Here's the link to register. But they also get the 24 hour, 12 hour, one hour. And you can actually do a 10. Instead of doing a one hour, you could do a 10 minute. Oh, I'm sorry. Instead of doing a 12 hour, you could do a 10minute. Because you want to do an hour before and then 10 minutes before.

Yeah.

And then. Yeah. Because that way you have their information, you can follow up with them.

Yeah.

You know, you could even, I mean, if you're collecting, I mean, Acuity collects their, their phone number as well. You could even text them, you know, and say, hey, you know, if you wanted to book like a 30 minute, like, strategy call to talk through, you know, your review season or your review process, here's a link to book that. Yeah. You know, so great having you today. Or we're sorry we missed you because, you know, we didn't see you in the thing. But we're sending the recording as well.

Okay. Right.

We.

We want to design everything as much as we can. So the ball's in our court.

Yeah. Right.

So lives are super, super valuable for visibility, but, like, the ball is never in your court with a live.

Yeah.

You have no control who's showing up. You have no idea of who is showing up and, like, who's just watching in the background.

Okay.

Yeah.

And then what do you think about timing for the webinar? I'm worried about the holidays.

Well, when. When were you guys talking about doing it?

Before?

Because I know we kind of talked.

Through we were going to do the live next week, which now still makes sense.

Yeah.

Right. Like, do the live and then post every day leading up to the webinar. But that brings us to, like, the week of Christmas.

So here's what you do is you do a live every day next week, getting people to register for the webinar. That's in the new year.

Okay.

Right. So let's see, because I know the first is on a Wednesday because we're moving BYOB that week. I mean, you could, you could potentially do it on the second. You know, like, are people going to be, like, hitting the ground, running back at work on the second, or are they going to be kind of meandering their way back?

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah.

And then you could really sell it for the second. Be like, hey, listen, like, you know, it's probably not going to be, you know, full force back to work on the second. And really, like, what you're gonna want is you're gonna want a game plan to tackle the feedback season.

Yeah, Right.

And that's exactly what we're gonna give you in this webinar. Like, this is gonna be the. The best work for you to do on the second to set your year, like the beginning, the first quarter of your year up for success.

Yeah.

Right. And then also, like, as you're posting throughout the holidays, you can just continually post about it after doing the lives. And don't forget the lives, oftentimes people go and watch them after the fact.

Yeah, right.

And I will say this. You can have your lives also stream to YouTube. Yeah. And then create like, almost like a PDF that has links to them. So if people want to go and see some examples, you can just use that as another resource that people can use as part of the packet that you're going to be giving or selling.

On the YouTube thing, I haven't quite figured this out yet, so I've done a live, like, downloaded it and posted it on YouTube as a video. But do the lives actually, can you find the lives themselves once they're not live anymore?

Yeah, okay. Absolutely. Yeah. So you can stream like, here, let me. I'll pull up my YouTube channel so you can kind of see how it shows up. And I don't, I don't, like, create content for YouTube. I. It's kind of like the passive, I'm going live here anyway, or I'm creating content over here anyway, so I might as well. And I have good storage space for videos. Yeah, I have like 277 followers right now, which I've never actively gone after, so. And these are the amount of views and watch hours that I've had in the last 28 days.

Oh, nice.

Which, I mean. And I really haven't gone live much in the last 28 days, so. Content. So my team uploads all of our. Our calls here to store it so that it can be streamed to Heartbeat. So these are all unlisted, so don't worry that it's. It's not public, but like, let's see. Where. I haven't gone live in a really long time. So what is.

I just want. I want to look at it from the. The user not. Or the audience's end.

Yeah.

So if we look at your channel.

No, I'm going to get out of studio. That's the problem. No.

Okay, pause.

Get ready for the.

YouTube kids.

I know, right?

Okay.

Yeah. So videos. So these are all my uploads. And then lives.

Oh, it does show them. Okay, so somebody can go back and watch the ones now. These were just things that you streamed live.

Exactly.

Okay, perfect.

Yeah. Okay.

But yeah, I mean, if you were to like come up with like a whole series of lives that you do, I mean, you can do them live and then go and make them into like a channel on their own, you know, or have it be like almost like a free course that you do and you could repost them or cut them up and edit and all the things. I love the thumbnail it picks because it's always the least flattering.

Of course.

Anyway. Yeah, but I would, I would just do that so it's stored somewhere outside of LinkedIn and it's more discoverable.

Yeah, yeah.

And then you can go through and like, I would ask. I would go to answer the public and I answer the public. Oh, this is a fun. Share my screen again. Because I mean, essentially YouTube is Google. Right? So answer the public.com.

I don't see your screen, by the way.

Oh, I. Weird.

Okay, so answer the public. Basically helps you see what questions people are already asking.

Okay.

Right. So what's a question that your clients or the people that would be coming to this workshop would be asking?

Oh, for this, for this workshop, one is like, how do I give good feedback?

Give feedback. So you, you want to use like just one. Right? Yeah.

Mm.

Right. So these are all the things that people are more likely to. Or that people are already searching on Google. So if you were to, if you were to spend money on ads, this is how much it would cost per click. But like, you can also just create content that answers these questions.

Oh, that's amazing.

You know, and then it's more likely to rank in Google. So, like in the description of the live, you're doing it. And it's also going to YouTube. It's far more likely to get hits on YouTube if it has these questions embedded in it. Right. You can also do. I would do like HR review.

Right.

What's a good cost per click? I just, I have no frame of reference.

It really depends. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not well versed in ads. So you don't want to talk to me about it. I have a few people I can refer you to, but I'm a big believer in figuring out the organic way to get clients first.

Yeah.

And then spending money on ads because, like, even though I know my clients really, really well and I have a really good organic thing, like I just spent $6,000 on meta ads and didn't get anything out of it. Right. So like, it's such an experiment and there's so many ways it can go wrong. Yeah, you want to like, be very, very economical first and make sure you have like money coming in from the organic stuff first. Yeah.

I wasn't thinking about actually using it to do an ad, but I, in my mind I was thinking like, what is like, there's got to be a good roi, Right. So it's like if it's under the dollar cost per click, totally worth it. If it's, you know, whatever, then it's only worth it if you have a hundred thousand followers or something.

Well, and it also depends on, like, on where you're doing the ads. Right. So for instance, Google Ads are going to be a different ROI. Meta ads are going to be different. TikTok's different. LinkedIn is one of the most expensive, expensive places, but like, they're the most high quality. So it's like $30 per lead on LinkedIn. Yeah. But you're also able to target a lot more.

Yeah.

Right.

Makes sense.

And if your ideal clients are on LinkedIn, then that makes sense.

Yeah.

Right. And then of course, like, you have to factor in depending on what you're selling. So for instance, it's really common in like the jewelry or, you know, accessories space that like your competitors will actually pay a bot team to go and use up all your ad spend. So how about 11?

Oh, like one after the other. Okay. Do you need something? No. Okay.

All good. So, yeah. But when you're ready. Absolutely. I'll introduce you to someone really good who, who can do ads. Yeah. So yeah, so do that and then like guide People to register for the webinar. Right. And then from the webinar, we want to set up an email sequence that goes out afterwards that's inviting them to book, like to buy the, the packet and also to sign up for the like half day feedback session or however you guys are setting that up.

Yeah. Cool.

Yeah. And then those, those also. I, I know we kind of talked about this previously. Like, you can go to anyone that you've ever spoken to before in your life and say, hey, listen, I've partnered up with this other person and we're offering these sessions in the new year. I actually haven't even announced it publicly yet. We only have 10 available. But I know you have feedback season coming up, you know, in February. I don't know if it would be useful for you or someone on your team who's like new to giving feedback to top performers or whatever, but would you want more information on it?

Yeah.

You know, it's a good idea.

Mm.

Because if you can sell stuff before you can get like three of those sold, you can say, hey, listen, we already pre. Sold three, three, Three of these. We only have seven more left.

Right.

That does create some honest scarcity. Right. And then in your other posts, in the other content you're creating, we don't want to confuse people, right? We don't want you talking about this thing only and then this thing only, because then they'll be like, I don't know what she does. But. So we want to talk about, like, you're promoting, you're doing your lives about this webinar. You're promoting the webinar, you're promoting the packet. And then in your other content, you want to nod to hey, HR people and people leaders, like, like, this is supposed to be like the relaxing time of the year for our species. You know, like bears go into hibernation, you know, these other animals aren't active. And we as humans decide, let's do all of the active holiday stuff right now. Let's create all this work for ourselves around like Christmas holidays, you know, Hanukkah, whatever you celebrate. Let's do exciting stuff for New Year's. Let's do this, this and this. And then as professionals, we immediately jump into this massive, massive, like paper pushing, emotional expenditure project that has serious ramifications across the business for the entire year. And we have to be at our top game for it. And by the way, like, this is, this is primo burnout time.

Right.

And if you're not taking care of yourself, guess what's going to happen. This, this isn't this. And I've seen it time and time again and you're probably reading this being like, yeah, yeah, so I'll plan a vacation after this. And actually that's not going to help you. Like you need to do stuff for your own self care right now to make sure that A, you know, you're not losing the company employees.

Right.

B, that you're not harming yourself. And so on and so forth. And if you need to get really serious about like taking care of your, of your life on top of your, on top of your career, whatever, then book a call with me.

Yeah, right.

Because we want to link them together so it makes sense that you're talking.

About both things, right?

Totally.

Yeah. Annual review time, finance, budgets. Yeah, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I used to love working in manufacturing like way back in the day because the last two weeks of the year everything shut down because they had to do inventory and budgets and everything. But so everyone else like how to break.

So nice for them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean any of that stuff that's happening right now in the industries that you work with.

Yeah.

Like talk about it.

Yeah, right.

Because your, your ideal clients are out there and if you're starting to talk about the stuff that they're already thinking about, like you don't have to convince them that you know how to help them.

Yeah, right.

If she, if they're like, wow, she knows this stuff, she, if she knows all that about what's going on in my life right now, then I bet she also knows how to help me.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah, no, that's good. Love it. Cool.

What else?

What else? I mean, right this second I'm feeling tiny bits of overwhelm, but it's just like, okay, one step at a time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's just, you know, getting it done and self caring at the same time.

Yeah.

Mm.

Yeah. Have you. I know, I know you were getting feedback. Realizing that like the burnout language wasn't landing with your, with your audience. Have you kind of honed in on what does resonate with, with your audience?

Well, it's funny because it does land with some of them. I, I feel, and I don't know why I feel this way, but I feel like it's becoming a big like it's bubble, it's going to bubble up.

Right.

I was just in this professional panel a couple of weeks ago and there was industry leaders and they're talking about the problem of burnout in their teams. So they were using that language, which is good.

Right, Right.

So it's becoming a more popular thing. But you know, it's the human emotions. It's exhaustion. It's the one thing that kind of cracks me up that I'm gonna have to make, make some content around is, you know, after this I'll, you know, after this week or after this.

Yeah.

Or after this or I'm actually seeing quite a few people who, who are like quitting one role and starting another one, which is a temporary fix, but it's. Right. Completely temporary.

Right, right.

Because they're going to burn themselves out within a year in the next role too, because they haven't learned anything different.

Right, right.

Yeah. So, so you're your future telling and that's going to be a long game. Like they're going to listen and like keep an eye on you. And then it's going to happen a year from now and then it's going to be like what you want to, what you want to talk about it is like the hindsight, like, wow, like you burned yourself out your last job. You changed, you thought and you heard so many good things about the company that you're at right now about work, life balance and how it's such a healthy environment. But you like, what the fuck happened? It's a year later and you're back where you were in your last job. And sure, things are better here. People are far more supportive and this is happening, and this is happening, this is happening. But none of that seems to have made a difference because you're still feeling how you were last year.

Yeah.

You know, because we want to, we want to catch the people just as they're realizing, oh, I'm the problem.

Yeah.

And I don't know how to fix it. Right. We don't want to say, oh, you're gonna realize that you're the problem. Because people are like, oh, yeah, sure, right. And then they have to just consistently see your stuff for a year until they realize, oh my God, Yvonne's right.

Yeah, right.

That's a good point.

Yeah.

And then, you know, as for the panel, like, great that they're talking about their teams having burnout.

Yeah.

But that's not an individual saying, I'm burned out.

Yeah. Right.

So when you're at. We always want to make sure that like the language we're using people are self recognizing with. Right. Because it's so easy, especially for, for people in HR who are to be like, oh, yeah, everyone else is burned out. I'm not, I'm just powering through the lights at the end of the tunnel. Like, I just have to get through this next month, you know.

Something else just popped in my head. I was reading this article about they're basically being sort of a soft skills epidemic, like loss of soft skills coming, like that's been growing and so leaning into how to not let a bad manager wreck your career or like how to survive a bad manager or you know, something along those lines. Because a bad manager is also a huge component in burnout.

Absolutely right.

Because of that lack of psychological safety and lack of trust and all those things.

Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Here, let me show you what I'm working on right now because I think this could be really useful for you as well. So I'm creating and this is, you know, just another version of like the content calendar that I've created for you and everyone in byob. So you know, the five day kind of breakup of like pain, desire, testimonial, my story details.

Yeah.

So what I'm writing right now is basically 21 cycles of that, which is it works out to be about like 105 days. 102 or 105 and so basically every five days is one topic. Right. And so you know, all my ones, you know, pain, desire, testimonial, my story details is going to be about get, get clients for one, for six it's about going to be about marketing for seven, it's about getting corporate clients. Right. And then I break it up into all these different pages. So like if I'm, if I'm in the pain mode and I want to go and write a bunch of pain posts, all I have to do is go and kind of think of, okay, well what's the pain of figuring out a niche? What's the pain of like getting corporate clients and write the pain there and then I can switch to desire and do the same thing and then I can go to testimonial and my end case studies and details and my story pretty much once I'm ready.

Right.

And then once you have these written because like you have a bunch of different angles you could take and it's so easy to get overwhelmed by like, oh, I have to incorporate it all into one piece of content.

Right.

But here you're like, you're making sure that you're hitting all the marks.

Yeah, right.

And then you just basically reuse it or edit it in small ways and repost it later.

Yeah.

Does that make sense?

How'd you come up with 21?

It's basically like I took, I took what, four, four weeks or I'm sorry, four months and then figured out how many five day cycles are in four months and then went from there.

Yeah.

So, yeah, so. And then of course you post personally throughout as well. So you don't necessarily have to keep it like every five days you go through one cycle. You can intersperse it with some personal stuff as well so you can grow your network. Yeah, but this way, like, you don't forget to post about what you do. You don't forget to talk about the problems that your clients are experiencing right now. You don't forget to showcase. Here's how I've been useful to people in the past.

Yeah, right.

Because that's really hard. I mean, that's, that's really hard to remember all those different marks that you have to hit all the time.

Right.

So that might be helpful to you. And then you can also use a lot of this in email content. Right?

Yeah, I've, it's like I don't play in the email part enough. Like it takes me, you know, a little time. I did create some emails that are scheduled throughout December and then like very first couple days of January. But like I, I chunk that in. But every time I get into it, I don't do it enough where I'm like, oh, how does this work again? How do I create this again?

But I know, I know, just it'll.

Get better with time.

Yeah, yeah. And honestly, like, I was never consistent with emails until I hired someone this year to help me with it.

Right.

So it's just like, you know, you can absolutely be successful without doing emails consistently.

Yeah, yeah.

So, but yeah, like, you know, all, all the content ideas that you have are all good. It's just like putting them on paper and posting them.

Oh. Something else just popped into my head. What I could really use your advice on. Yeah, I do have people, you know, reaching out, but basically for like free advice. And these are people I know. So it's a little bit different than just, you know, somebody, I don't know where I can just say, oh, I offer that, here's that service.

How do I do that?

Same thing with people that I know that I maybe have even helped in the past, either for free or when I was like in the same company with them. Because then I help them for free. Right.

Yeah. I mean, it's uncomfortable, but you genuinely have to say, you know, I would so love to help you here, but I do have to respect my clients who pay me for this, this service.

Yeah.

Right.

So, like, I would love to help you. If you're curious about what I do with clients, then here's a link to book that. But really, like, to honor the work that I provide for my clients who pay a lot for it. I. I can't be providing this for free.

Right.

Every new business owner goes through a phase where the universe is, like, just trying on, like, how do you want to help people? Here's people who want help, and here's people who want help. Like, do you want to help these people? And it really requires you to say, like, happy to help you in the. In the box of working together. But other than that, like, I. I really can't provide this service for free.

Yeah, Right.

And then the universe corrects. It also is helpful. So that's also something that I did. It's one of the reasons I ended up doing this call is because I was getting a lot of, like, freebie chasers who wanted free advice.

Right.

And so it was a great thing to be able to say, hey, listen, every Friday, I do a group call. If you have any questions, come to that call and ask it there. Right. I don't. I don't give free advice otherwise, like, but I do give back to my community.

Right.

Every Friday. Every other Friday, Once a month.

Yeah.

You know. Yeah. You know, you could do like an HR support club.

Did when you first started this was your. Because your free one is now on some months. Was it every week?

Yeah. And actually it started off in 2020, in May, I think, as Friday business or Friday office hours. Like, that was it. Like, I didn't have a creative name at all. And then I promoted it and promoted it, and I really just said, it's Friday office hours. And here are the few topics that we'll talk about. And then I'll answer questions on, like, money mindset and selling and marketing and all that stuff. And so people would arrive and ask questions. And then after. After, like a month or so, I asked everyone, like, what do you feel like the theme is here? You know? And everyone's like, oh, well, being brave, obviously. Like, this is about bravery. Bravery and asking people to be your client. Bravery and being seen. And I was like, oh, cool. So it turned into the being brave call. Right. And I was doing it every single Friday. And then I realized I was attracting people to it that weren't wanting to start businesses, which is great. But also, they weren't my ideal client.

Yeah. They weren't ready yet.

Yeah. So I changed it to Brave Biz Labs.

Right.

And then turn, you know, it became its own thing. And then I realized I was giving too much away and I dialed it back to every other Friday for a while and then I couldn't get into the rhythm with it. And I also missed talking to my genuine clients who liked coming to it every Friday. And then I had, I had a OBM for a little while who almost crashed and burned my business, so I had to take a break from doing it so I could rebuild a bunch of stuff. And then when I relaunched it, I did it as it's only for one on one clients, the whole for every Friday. And then the fourth Friday is open to the public because I was realizing there were people who were coming every Friday and kind of taking advantage of.

Yeah.

You know, so. And I was giving too much away for free when my clients pay a lot to work with me.

Yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, it's like, you know, it's a never ending experiment. You can change it, you can evolve it, you can dial it up, dial it down, you know, whatever serves you and your clients true. You know, But I mean, ultimately, ultimately our business is a pool party.

Yeah, right.

There are people, there are the Katie McManuses who will show up with their bathing suit onto their clothes and they will jump into the deep end as soon as they get there. And then there are people that will never get in the pool, but they will support you. They'll come to the party anyway. And then they're the people that we need to build our businesses for and they need some time to like ease into it.

Yeah, right.

They're in changes their bathing suit. They're going to come to a webinar. They need to experience you and make sure that you are who you seem, you are, like you are online and in a, in a low pressure, like, I don't feel like I'm obligated to buy kind of way. Right. So I mean, you're already doing that with the webinar, you know, you're going to do it with your lives, you know, and, and that's really like they need to experience that before they become your client.

Right.

There was a three month period, I think in 2021 where I was doing a webinar every two weeks. So I did like six webinars and there were some people who came to every single webinar I did and then booked two different sales calls throughout and then became a client like a month after I finished.

Yeah, right.

They needed all of those touch points to make sure that they were ready and that this is the right thing for them.

Yeah. Right.

So the more of that you can do, the. The more you're setting them up for success, to actually out themselves. As I'm interested. To buy from. In buying from you. My English is not good right now.

No, I get it. Like I said, I have a little bit of a hangover from the, from this past week. I'm the same way where I'm like, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah. I didn't even have a Tony Robbins week, and I'm. I'm hungover from my weeks.

Yeah.

And it feels overwhelming. But honestly, a webinar doesn't have to be complex. And actually, for coaches, I recommend keeping it intimate, keeping it slideless.

Yeah. Right.

Because slides create distance. Right. What. What builds connection is feeling like, oh, my God, we're here in this room together, and you see me, and you're reflecting that I'm not up and you're answering my question, and I'm feeling supported, and I'm watching other people feel supported, and you are the way you are with everyone.

Yeah.

Right. So, yeah.

What else you got?

I think those are the two big things at the moment. My husband just walked by and goes, you also got me. Hello. Oh, you know Jeff? I'm like, why am I calling him?

Yeah, we went for sushi. Or did we go. No, we went to the fish. There was a. I went to sushi earlier that day. We went to. What did we. What restaurant do we go to?

I don't remember, but it's cute.

It was really cute.

It had, like, tapas and stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah. That was the day I, I, I left my wallet and my phone, and he had to come rescue me.

Right, that's right.

I mean, it's. It's scary being 90 minutes away from home without any of your things.

No. Yeah. Yeah.

That was a crazy day, too.

Yeah. I, I once walked, like, clean across New York city with only $20. And, like, I tried not to look, use my phone at all. And it was so anxiety, like, inducing. It was so hard because I was constantly bombarded with, you can't do that. You can't do that. You can't do that. You know, like, you have to ration your $20 all the way up Manhattan. Yeah.

The most intense experience I've had of that is when I went backpacking on Mount Rainier with a couple of girlfriends.

Right.

Because there is no cell service.

Right, Right.

So you have not. And, And, I mean, the hikes are hard. Right. It was like. It was. It was intense. And I just. I mean, there were parts of the day where I was thinking, like, if you fall down and break your leg, you're gonna have to crawl your way out of here. Because even the rangers that come by, like, there's no way to get you off this mountain. Like, you have to leave yourself. Right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

The first couple days were terrifying. And then you kind of settle into it. You're like, I'm gonna be okay. Like, just don't be stupid.

Yeah, right. Right.

Yeah. I did a. A ragnar race in few years ago in, like, August in. In West Virginia, and, like, the wild of West Virginia. And on one of the loops, you had to go during the night and in the woods, and a girl that I passed had broken her ankle.

Oh, geez.

And of course, she had people helping her. She had paramedics, but, like, there weren't auxiliary roads to take her, so she literally. They were having to, like, walk her.

Yeah.

And she was having to, like, stumble through on a broken ankle. I. And the path was too. Too rough to even have, like, a stretcher.

Yeah.

So I've. No, thank you. Manhattan's as wild as I get.

I mean, I love going out. And even. Even we've done a. We did a hike a few weeks ago, which isn't, like, on a huge mountain, but we were like, how did people get, like, the bridge in here? You know what I mean? Like, these big things because there's no road. So I'm like, they either airlifted this crap, or 30 people carried it, you know?

Seriously? Yeah. I don't know, man, but I think you're very brave for doing that.

But, you know, I mean, the prison or they built it on the spot. Yeah. But they had to get the material. How do you get those big, you know, pieces of wood up there?

You eat it, and then you throw it back up.

That's how Parker would build a bridge material and throw it up. Yeah.

Yeah. Whenever I'm building something, I just eat it first and throw it back up when I get to where I'm building it. Absolutely.

Love it.

All right. What else you got?

Actually, Is there anything I can do to help you?

Oh, my gosh. I don't think so. I mean, you already. You filled out that. That survey, and that was such a huge help. So thank you. No, thank you, though. Yeah.

I'm trying to be more service oriented.

Oh, my gosh. That's so kind. Yeah, I don't think so.

Well, if you think of anything that you could, you know, use help with or you know, if you want me to repost something of yours or something.

Like that, you know, I actually, I never ask people to repost stuff because it hurts your engagement more than anything and it doesn't help me at all.

Okay, Right.

So it's actually one of the signs of like kind of a LinkedIn scammer is they'll ask you to repost their stuff to help you be more successful, but it's not actually for them. Yeah, you know. Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, no, I, I mean, if there's any, you know, as I'm looking to plan out next year, there are things that like, I want to, I want to continue building on BYOB and the resources. So if there's any resources that you're wanting, no guarantees that it's going to be something I can tackle in the next year, but I'd love to know what different kinds of support you'd like to be getting from the community so that I can really start thinking through if it's possible for me to provide those.

So, you know, funny one thing that just popped in my mind and I don't know if this is possible or not, but it came up in that, in that panel that I, that I talk to, they're using AI or a version of like Chat GPT to do role play on feedback, which is, I think is brilliant. Right. Because then you don't have to do the silly, like, everyone's uncomfortable with the like, role playing piece, but you do it with someone with something that's giving you answers. I wonder if you've thought about like a role playing sales practice. Somebody can do it in like Chat GPT or something, like a prompt or something that you would be able to practice. Now, I don't know if that would be effective or not, but it's.

Yeah. You know, roleplay is one of those things that I absolutely love doing. And I also know that in sales it's hard to do theoretically.

Yeah.

On your own. Exactly. So it's one of the things that when people come to Sales Lab, I love if we have enough people. I love doing role play because then everyone gets to see, see, you know, what works, what doesn't work, and then the person who's doing it obviously grows and learns and the person who's like, being sold, you know, sees what works and what doesn't land. Yeah, yeah, that's actually a really good idea. I wonder if there is a way to use ChatGPT to simulate some version of that.

Yeah, right.

You know, even, even, you know, figuring out what the objections are for your particular work and how, like, to come up with, like, just how do you overcome those in your back pocket?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. That's actually. Okay, cool, thank you. Anything else?

I mean, I think the, the course content is really good and I want to, like, go back and revisit it again. The objections are really good. The other thing that has surprised me is where I thought like, oh, that call went really well and then nothing came out of it.

Right.

I'm like, but I mean, it's being new and I think the thing that I forgot to do was like, to schedule a follow up call where I was like, oh, I definitely followed up with the person, but it was via email.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, the yes, no call is really the thing that moves people to buy.

Yeah, right.

Because they have, they have a, like a deadline to make a decision by.

Yeah, right.

And especially if you're, if you're saying, okay, how many days do you need to think about this and booking it only a few days later and not being like, oh, how, how much time? Because oftentimes people like, oh, give me a month. And by a month they've, they've stopped caring.

Yeah.

You know, like, really, if someone says, give me a month, they don't want to buy from you.

Yeah, right.

They don't care enough. Like, this is something that is just like, they were curious and that's it. And also, like, when someone says yes, booking that first kickoff call, if you're like, I can't tell you. I've been, I've been going through my notes from past client calls and like, you know what people tell me from their first couple times? Getting yeses, like 95%. If it's not the first kickoff call isn't booked, they get ghosted.

Yeah.

The person never books their call, never pays, never submits the agreement.

Oh, there was one more thing that I just remembered. This is an interesting situation. So I had somebody who wanted to sign up, somebody that I knew from my network that I actually, I used to mentor who wanted to sign up with me like way back in May. I ended up having to kind of fire her. Right. Because she was like, oh, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it. And then she would kind of ghost me for a while. And again she's been like texting me, oh, can I do it? Can I do it? So I, I had her book like a follow up call with me, like a, you know, because we had had the original call and again, she's like, oh, can, you know, can we postpone it, this kind of thing? I want to be pretty candid with her. Like, but I also. I don't know. I don't know why I'm hesitant to.

I mean, you're already not getting any money from her. I. I think so. We. We have this sunk cost fallacy that happens. Like, well, this person's been interested. So, like, you know, I don't want to scare away their business, but so far, all you've described is them wasting your time.

Yeah. Right.

And I think it's perfectly fair for you to kind of call bullshit and say, hey, listen, totally, you know, I'm so excited for you that you're interested in doing this work so far. We started the conversation here. We've postponed numerous times. I'm actually getting the impression that this isn't something that you're ready to invest in right now.

Yeah.

And, you know, want to support you in your journey, but I also need to honor my own time.

Yeah.

And so wish you all the luck. When you are ready to sign up, here's the link to buy. But as of now, I can't. I can't continue this dance. I can't continue this, you know, book a call, postpone the call. Book a call, postpone a call. Yeah, you know, it's setting. It's setting a boundary because, like, the universe pays attention to this.

Yeah, right.

The universe sees what you're willing to tolerate is like, oh, you like that.

You.

You're entertaining that. Let's send you more of that. You seem to like it so much.

Yeah, right.

And honestly, people do not have any awareness at all about how they're being with us. I had one guy who just had me jump through hoops putting together proposal after proposal after proposal for his company to do support, for him to do it with, in. In conjunction with my OBM and all this stuff. And then he completely ghosted me. Like, ghosted the kickoff call. Never paid, never submitted the agreement. A year later, he reached out to me asking for a referral for another coach to help him through a triathlon. And I sent him a message back, and I said, listen, I totally am in your corner wishing you luck with the triathlon. However, I can't, in good conscience, after my bad experience with you and how you treated my time in my business, refer you to another business person that I admire and respect. Totally. Worse, you know, support you and. And still on your side. However, like, I can't. I can't in good conscience, like, put someone else in that position that you put me in. And he ever respond? He did. He was like, thank you so much for that feedback. I really appreciate it and I totally understand. But he had no awareness that he was being disrespectful.

Yeah.

So. Yeah. But I mean, like, it's, it's really fascinating. People will take what you're willing to give.

Yeah.

Until you're not willing to give it anymore. And, and when you start setting these boundaries, as uncomfortable as it is, the universe pays attention and sends you more serious people. Right. The more you entertain people who just want to like shoot the. And pick your brain for free, that's who the universe sends you.

Yeah. Right.

And it's, it's, it's really fascinating, like nothing will change really, about how you communicate outwardly. But you'll stop getting those, those requests.

Yeah.

No, that's.

I know, I know. But you just have to say the uncomfortable thing first, which is the hardest part.

Which is funny. When I wasn't representing myself. Uh huh. That was like my sweet spot. Having the hard conversations.

Doing it.

When I'm representing me as a service.

Yeah.

It feels different. So that's, I mean that's. Yeah. That's where the growth has to happen.

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? And maybe it's you putting together a simple Link that's like 250 for a 30 minute call, you know, and just say, hey, listen. Yeah, totally down to support you in this. What I do now because I work for myself is, you know, and, and previously we worked together or whatever and you had access to me and I was being paid by someone else. You know, now I have this link. So just go ahead and buy, you know, buy time. Yeah. And I'm happy to give you that hour. You will record it. So you have it as a resource. We can cover anything you want and everything we talk about is confidential.

Yeah.

You know, and also if you need, if you need this paid by your. By your boss, happy to send them invoice directly. Right.

Love it.

Yeah. You know, it's like more and more with all the layoffs and in all the resources being stripped away from people in their jobs, they're looking for support outside that they can trust that they know has their best interests at heart.

Yeah.

And not the company taking advantage of them at heart, you know?

Yeah.

Agree.

Yeah.

So what else?

Speaking of which.

Yes?

Can I have this recording? Did we record? We didn't record. Did you? Oh, you did. Yeah.

Yeah, actually. So all of these are saved in the resources of Heartbeat. Yeah.

So you just wanna. I took notes and everything, but I'm gonna want to rewatch this.

Yeah, totally. And I can send you the. The transcript if you want it.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. Cool.

Awesome. All right. What's your main takeaway Friday? Oh, I said, what's your main takeaway from today?

Oh, my God, so much. Well, you're reinforcing something that I walked out of this last week with. My. My word for 2025 is bold.

Yeah.

Courage and confidence. Right. Just having the hard conversations, drawing the. The boundaries. But what was really super helpful is, you know, you and I just walked through, like, selling the webinar, using the live to, like, lead up to that, posting up to that, and remembering to kind of tie everything back to all my other things of, like, burnout, because I'm always taking that angle of it. So that was really, really helpful, like, of it. Good. So, yeah.

Awesome. Great. Well, have an amazing weekend.

Thank you. You too.

And I'll see you next week.

Yes. Are we. Do we have a sprint call Monday? No, we don't.

Hold on. Yes, we do.

Okay, then I will see you there.

All right, see you there. Bye.

Thanks, Katie. Bye.