BYOB Beginner Group Session 2024 07 24

Hello, hello, hello. How's it going?

Hello.

Bienvenue.

I have to turn off my dehumidifier real quick. Give me a second.

Oh, all good, all good. Awesome. Happy Wednesday, everyone. What are we celebrating today?

I'll go.

Yes, Alex.

Well, it's not from today. It's still from yesterday, but I'm still feeding from it. I sent out my first proposal that was for my new way of how I want to do business in the future. And I did send it out after sweating over, like, should I hit send? Should I hit send? And after texting you and didn't even contain pricing it. But still it was the new sales pitch of like we're doing long term business, not like one off marketing activities.

Yeah. Amazing. Oh, let Yvonne in. Fabulous. Well done. All right. And who else has something to. To celebrate?

I will celebrate. Bounce off of my celebrations from last time and that I reached out to a few like 10ish, maybe more than 10 by now, internal audit folks. And actually got some responses. Two responses. But still something to celebrate.

Well done. And I literally, as I was logging into this, I saw that one of my assistants had sent me a video about the ClickUp thing.

Oh, yeah.

To watch it yet? So after that, go watch it and figure out what's going on and get back to you.

Cool.

Thank you.

Cool, cool.

All right. What else are we celebrating?

I'll.

I'll celebrate repeat customers.

Yeah, it's always nice.

It's nice when somebody pays you the first time, but it's. It feels even sweeter when they come back and pay you again.

Yeah.

Remind me, are you having them do pay an invoice every single time?

Well, I'm doing monthly, so it's just an automatic invoice.

Okay, good, good, good. Okay, cool. Amazing. Yeah.

Okay.

I just wanted to make sure, because that's a lot of work, you know, once you start really signing up a lot of clients. Awesome. And then, Jason, anything you want to celebrate, and we do celebrations, even small things because we have to celebrate every single, like action we take or else we go absolutely insane.

Yeah. I think I made a lot of progress this week, getting much clearer on two potential market niches. And I've started posting on LinkedIn again.

Amazing. Well done. Yeah. And I know, I know you're kind of playing with both. Both are good, you know, but of course, like the market research, you might want to do market research on both, you know, to really understand which one you feel more aligned to.

Yeah. I was looking online. One of the things that I'd Be curious to get your perspective, maybe even the perspective of others in the group. So the gray area, drinking, conversation. When you look online, it's very female dominated. There's not very many people that look like me. And I know a lot of guys just wouldn't feel comfortable like in a, some, a space that looks like it's feminine. So I wonder if that's for a reason because men won't go to coaching or if it's an advantage where I could stand out because I would look different.

It's hard to say. I will say I've had a client who's actually in BYB before in the very first iteration, and he was a grief coach and he was wanting to do grief coaching for men and he had a really difficult time finding clients who are willing to sign up. And he kind of had the same thing. Like there were a lot of grief groups that were female dominated.

Hello. Who?

And like men, you know, he couldn't, he had a really hard time figuring out what was going on. So we started augmenting his business with some consulting and hr. But it is something that you just, you don't know until you get out there and try it. Unfortunately, like, I can't give you like a for sure answer. Like it's not going to work or it is going to work. I know plenty of coaches who work in like men's empowerment and like men's mental health spaces who do really well, you know. But it also, it just, it depends on a lot of factors, unfortunately.

Jason, I know of at least one that is very successful. If you, if you Google one year, no beer is the name of the company or program. The guy's out of the uk so like there's definitely market for it. But one thing I've noticed recently in his marketing though, he's also pivoted slightly. He's been around for, I don't know, 10 years or so is that he's recently pivoted slightly to include. You don't have to actually give up alcohol, which I feel like is a little weird and off brand. So I'm not sure what's going on in that market for men, but I would just check it some of his stuff out.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, it's funny, I'm. I think that might have been the app I used when I was. Oh no, I tried, I did try dry when I stopped drinking. But you know, the other thing I want you to just notice there is like he has a very low ticket offer. He has an app that he's selling. I don't know. Yvonne, do you know where, how he started? Did he start with one on one coaching?

It started as a challenge. Like there's a book, there was a challenge and he does, he did some high ticket coaching for like a small.

He.

I feel like now he has everything. Yeah, but it started as a challenge and then he offered one on one coaching and then has now expanded. So he's kind of taken your, your approach where you started. High ticket.

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean you could absolutely do something like that. You know, I always ask the question because you know, sometimes when we, when we look at other people and their business success, like they didn't start the way, like they didn't start with what we have in front of us. They started in a different way. But if that's where he started, then that's absolutely an option as well.

Okay, can I throw in one thing?

Yeah.

Market research. I think it would be super interesting what Yvonne just said, figuring out if men would be more likely to do something in a group setting where they are more anonymous or maybe where they even like they're part of a community, but no one truly knows that they're part of that community versus one on one coaching. Because as soon as you started talking, immediately thought of my husband who is, you know, he wants to do all of these things. But as soon as you say like, oh maybe talk to a therapist or maybe talk to a coach, he's like, no, like even though he's not that like much of a dude dude, like super masculine or anything, but just your average, you know, husband, father. I don't know but I feel like he has the drive he wants or the motivation to do constantly something I'm not that you should base it off of think. But that was just like one question maybe for market research community being anonymous versus one on one coaching. I don't know.

Yeah. Yeah. The other thing that you want to ask when you're doing market research is like what do they imagine is on the other side of having more control over, over their drinking? You know, because are, are you thinking your ideal clients want to quit drinking altogether or that they want to like have more, more control over it?

I think my ideal client would love to have more control over it and drink like a normal person, but they don't know if they can got it right. Like, and I think that's so thinking about, and I don't want to dominate the call, but thinking about the, the next steps in the program. If I have two niches that I want to test. So the new coach. I have expertise in the gray area. Drinking, I have expertise in. Yeah, I've saved a marriage. So those are the two things that I think that I could, like, speak to. How would you run market research if you were trying to test two ideas at the same time?

Yeah, it's a lot more work, I'll be honest. But I would. I would choose different channels for each. All right, so for instance, I might pick, like, three to five Facebook groups and have, like, you know, pick one for, say, the drinking one, and then the other one's for the relationship ones. I could also email specific people. I would be very targeted in who I'm reaching out to in my personal network. And Dina just answered the question. We're talking about which niche Jason should be looking at. And we're kind of just saying, like, look at both. You know, you might want to go to Reddit, Reddit channels, you know, especially, like, there are different conversations happening on Reddit, but I would just. I would get very specific about it. Who are you reaching out to for what? You know, so if you have a friend who, you know, has a lot of married friends, you know, or they're. I don't know, they have a lot of friends who are partiers, you know, you might. You might reach out to them with the different ask.

Okay.

You know, and there's no harm in being honest about. I'm trying to decide which area I want to focus on, you know, with my business. You know, you can be totally honest about it.

Right? That is the purpose of market research.

Right, Exactly.

It's.

It's to help you understand, like, what you actually want to do. Because, I mean, you could get 10. 10 interviews in and be like, I'm so bored of talking about this. I can't. I can't have this conversation again. And then that's your answer. And also, like, it helps. You can assess out if there's actually a market for it.

Right. Okay.

Cool. Yep.

Okay, awesome. What other questions do we have today? Yes, Monica.

So with the new corporate consulting offer that I'm working on, I'm wondering if I should go somewhere other than LinkedIn. I'm noticing, at least for now, I'm still just starting out, but I'm noticing that, like, audit folks don't really utilize LinkedIn very often. So my question is, like, should I get on something like a fiverr and upwork, or, like, what other avenues?

Do not get on fiverr. Do not get on upwork.

Okay.

The thing about those sites is that it's all about price.

Okay.

And so everyone's just racing to the bottom. Right. Also, remember, like, the audit people are not the only ones who are aware that this is an initiative. Right. They're in meetings with managers of other departments, they're in meetings with their higher ups, with their team. And those people are on LinkedIn. Right. And so those people may say, may see your content and be like, oh, I just came across this woman, Monica, who does X, Y and Z. I know we keep saying we need to do this thing and it keeps getting pushed off. Maybe we should bring someone else in.

Okay.

Easier for us.

Okay.

And also, just because people aren't active on LinkedIn doesn't mean they're not on LinkedIn. You really, you can't know just by someone's activity. You know, I, I, I'm gonna make like a very broad assumption about people who are auditors is that they're probably kind of shy and introverted.

Absolutely. And it's like we don't know what we can share.

Yeah.

And that's where like I started off, where I was like, I'm not even gonna be on social media because I'm just gonna, you know, make everything safe. But then it's like, well, but how do I put myself out there now that I own a business? And so it's, it's definitely a thing.

Yeah, yeah. So it doesn't mean that they're not on there.

Yeah, true. Okay.

Yeah. Even my client, like there are some people who start who end up working with me that they've never liked a single thing that I posted. They've never commented. Like, the only time I figure out they exist is when they show up on my calendar. You know, there's, there's money in the lurkers.

Okay.

I like what you just pointed out, that, that like the CEOs in, in all of the management suite is in those meetings. And so.

Yeah.

Okay.

And so even speaking to that saying, you know, one of the things I'm hearing from a lot of people is.

That.

You know, auditing, their, their cyber security has been on the to do list for X amount of questions quarters and it keeps getting bumped back because there, there's this crisis and then there's this crisis and then Microsoft goes down, then this and then this and then this and you know, it's just like this never ending thing. They're always, there's always like a bigger fire to put out, you know, and it's not like anyone in the company has, you know, an extra 20 hours a week to put towards this massive project. And it is absolutely massive because, you know, you have to look at this and you have to look at this, and you have to look at this. But, you know, you see, you know, the occasional news story of how a company, like, their data was breached and they compromised the information of how many. How many customers. And it really hurts trust. And it does this, and it does this and, like, your stomach sinks and you're like, oh, God, like, please don't let that happen before we figure out, like, when we can get to this, you know, and you say, or you can bring me in. You know, you don't need to have an extra 20 hours a week. You can, you can bring me in and I can, I can devote that time. I also am not in it. So I can see stuff that you're not gonna be able to see because you're too close to it. True. Right? Okay. Yeah, yeah. But we, we want to be very careful to use language that it's not just what the auditors would say, it's how everyone else is also talking about. Yeah, right. Because, like, you know, the hunter's spouse might be on. On LinkedIn. You never know. And they don't really understand what their spouse does, but understand that they're bitching about this kind of problem, that they kind of understand. You want to use that kind of. I kind of understand language because that's what it will. At least get your stuff shared with them. Like, hey, I think this lady might be able to help you with the thing. Alex, you were going to say something?

Yeah, I just wanted to add that I know from a firsthand, like, one of my clients, she is works, has a company and customs export import, and they also do a lot of auditing. I think that's basically exactly the same target audience. I mean, as in, like the same type of Persona. Super introvert, shy people. They just did an event and they had workshops. And a lot of the feedback about those workshops were like, I didn't really want to participate in a workshop. So. So introvert. And what I wanted to share is she's been like, acting like an influencer in that space for now on LinkedIn for almost two years. And over the past year, I want to say she's started gaining traction and it's like, still mostly likes because no one's to comment. And I know that she has so many followers, but still, the amount of likes and comments that she gets, it's still very small. And it's from those few extroverts lots of other, you know, agencies in that space. So I do fully agree. I think they are reading because she's absolutely gaining traction in that market, and I've been working with her for two years now. So I get it how it is working with introverts who don't even want to, like, show that they liked. And saw what you posted there. I think that's. It is exactly that same target audience.

So don't give up years. Yeah.

You know, and I just want to call out because I know a lot of you, you know, you're in the beginning stages of posting to LinkedIn. It can take 5 months to get your first client. It can take 5 months to get your first one on one client on LinkedIn. You know, there's a, there's a portion of this where you're running on faith and you're just consistently showing up. Right. For corporate clients, it can take longer. Right. So, like, it's very tempting to get discouraged. But to the point, like your friend, it took a year. You know, I also, I do want to call out what Dina did. You know, she went through job postings for companies to, you know, they were looking for investor relations, and she reached out to the person hiring or the CEO and said, I know you're, you're, you're searching for this, but I do X, Y and Z. And I, I do it in a consulting manner. Would you want to talk? Because it might be a better option for you. Okay. You know, Monica, you might want to look at, at smaller companies and do something similar. Dina, if you don't mind me sharing your strategy.

Thank you so much. Absolutely. And we're still in talks.

Yeah.

We started in April or. Yeah. Now it's July and I'm traveling to Lithuania. So we. And he's based. Lithuania, so we might meet face to face for the first time in August. End of August.

Awesome.

Yeah, he already hired somebody. But when we spoke after I did my intelligence and I was very upfront with him, I said, I saw that you hired somebody. Congratulations. I was very, you know, cool about it and stressed. But then he felt relieved. And anyway, you can never know. I'm just, yeah. Keep on getting up and doing it again and again and again.

Yeah, yeah. But you know what? This is that stage. There's a stage of your business in the beginning where you're doing a lot of leg work to get the client so that you don't have to do as much leg work later, you know, so that things can be easier later. But you have to get your first, like five to 10 clients in the door, and then. And then you can kind of coast.

Well, thank you for saying that out loud. Yeah, I don't give my. Well, I do have my moments, but every day I ask myself, what are the opportunities I'm going to create today? Every single day.

Yeah. Great question to ask, but. But Monica does help.

Yes, it does. Thank you so much.

Okay, awesome. Yeah. And then what other questions do we have?

I have one. I keep getting stuck on this, like, branding question naming. So I have an llc. Katie, you know this, but I blanked. When I had to, like, found it and gave attorney, I was like, okay, it's just going to be Hellebore Innovations llc. Helor are my favorite flowers. My husband and I said, like, we need to add something. And Innovations is like, as generic as you can get. So here we are with Hellebore Innovations llc. I do marketing services and I know, like, hello, like, what the freak? Like, no one's going to know. Like, I'm providing marketing advice, consulting, whatever. Like, it has nothing to do with marketing. And I don't know if anyone else has run into this issue because Katie, you're Katie McManus. And that is how most coaches, consultants, advisors, etc, they're just showing up with their, like, own name. So now I'm, like, stuck in this. Like, I mean, the LLC can just be like, you know, the holding behind it, but doesn't do anything and doesn't show up other than like on an invoice or something. And maybe my email address. Alex Hellobor innovations dot com. But what I'm. I'm so lost and like. And I. I know I overthink things, but, you know, how do I. I'm.

Just curious, what's your actual fear here?

That I feel like I need to, like, consolidate it. Like if I get. Go out there on Instagram.

Why. Why do you feel you need to consolidate it?

I feel like I need. At some point, I need a brand or I need like, the web address. Like, which one is going to be.

My main web address? What are you afraid is going to happen?

That I'm picking the wrong one.

But.

But what's the effect it's gonna have?

What are.

Like, this is all about your action. What's the actual fear here that I sh.

My fear is that I'm not going to make the perfect choice that I'm gonna pick, for example, HelloBore Innovation. And everyone is like, what the freak is hella bore innovation. Or I'm picking Alex Ricadi. Or Alex marketing or marketing. Whatever it is all sounds dumb and bull and people are already like, no, like what? Like, I don't know. I'm just not making the perfect choice. And like how it comes off. And when I come off as professional advisor who charges a lot of.

There's no such thing as perfect.

I know, but it does not close to perfect.

It doesn't exist. You're not the exception. You're not special. That like, it's not perfection. Doesn't work for everyone else. But I get to be perfect. No, fuck that.

But there's.

But there's sometimes a better choice than the other.

Yeah, but I mean, like, honestly, I had a coach who's. Whose LLC was. It's all made up. Can I tell you how many times my credit card rejected their charges? The bank was like, what is this? Sounds like a scam. I just changed my LLC to Brave Weenies. Right? Yeah, you know, it's your. Your LLC really doesn't matter that much.

It's.

It's a tool for you to use in your contracts.

Exactly.

You and to like, create a buffer so if you ever get sued, the LLC gets sued and not you personally. Okay, so that's it. The name, like. Yeah, that's it. You can name. You can whatever.

My main URL. How would you like. And. And maybe you guys have websites or a logo or something that you like put on your like little LinkedIn pictures so no one can grab them and just like run with them, even though obviously they can crop it. But is it the name? Should I go with Alex Shi. To be more personal or something that says has marketing in it. Like I'm immediately. Because I know in like half a year. Year, I'm probably going to make a logo or something. Not I. I will hire someone.

But.

So this is something that we're going to want to talk about outside of this. This session for beginners. And I want to make sure like, this is. This is kind of beyond where everyone else is at.

Yeah.

Don't get freaked out about this, guys. This is not something you should all be worrying about right now. Alex, you might actually want to talk to another client of mine, Michelle McCarthy.

Okay.

She might be on the call tonight, but I can connect you guys because she's a branding specialist also.

Okay.

That would be cool.

Yeah. Yeah. But for right now, for now, I'm.

Alex or Kennedy out there.

Yeah. Yeah. And I want you to remember, like, we don't have a marketing problem. We have a memorability problem. Right. When we bump into People out there in the world, what are they going to remember? They're far more likely to remember your name.

Yep.

Right.

Because you're the person that they met. So when they go back to their house and they open their computer and they go to like, look you up on. On LinkedIn or to look for your website, what are they going to Google? They're going to your name. Right. That's the thing that they remember. Right. So like, we want to make sure that they can. They can easily find us.

Yeah.

Versus like, oh, crap, she said her business name. I don't remember the most common. Yeah. Like if we give people too remember. It's almost like handing them too many apples. Like you can only.

Yeah, exactly. And I'm not like a true. You know, it's not a big company where you're like, okay, I'm going to make the effort in trying to figure this out. It's.

Yeah.

LLC behind it.

Yeah. Yeah. Your LLC is. Is genuinely a tool for you to use to protect yourself legally.

And. And that's what I set it up with. And stop worrying too much about what the name is and just put something there.

Exactly.

That also from a legal perspective was broad enough in case I, you know, wanted to do something else all of a sudden.

Totally.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yes.

Do I need to set up an LLC now with no clients, or is that a later conversation?

I. I don't know. In Canada. I'm not. I'm. I would talk to an attorney in Canada and ask them what. What is smart. I know in the coaching world in the United States it's not common to get sued. I'm not sure if that is different in Canada.

I would think it would be less common. We're not a SUI here.

You know. Yeah, that's. That's absolutely true. Yeah. I, I'm a big. I'm a big believer in be as cheap as possible for as long as possible. So depending on how much an LLC is where you are, you know, be as cheap as possible for as long as possible. But I'm not a lawyer and I do not give you. And I'm not giving you this advice based on what will protect you.

Yeah.

Right.

What. What would be helpful for me and maybe other people on the. So before working with you, I went to the bank and I set up a business bank account and I attached a line of credit to it.

Yeah.

So that I could start to track what I was spending on the business. And it was separate from my personal finances.

Yes.

So, like, right now I'm you know, whatever in the hole because there's no cash flow coming in yet. What are the things in, in your opinion in the first 90 days that I should prepare myself that are. Must have investments and what are the things that are just waste of time and energy and I can just forget about?

Yeah, Acuity scheduling.

Yeah.

Acuity scheduling.

That. That's it.

Acuity scheduling.

Okay.

Okay. Social media. If you're switching over from your employer paying for LinkedIn Premium to you paying for LinkedIn Premium, go for it. That was. I. I hate LinkedIn for this because if you have premium and then you downgrade to free, it kills your engagement. I did it at one point and I couldn't take the pain.

I just.

So I just upgr it again. I was like, fuck it, they can have my money, whatever.

And it changed everything right away.

Plummeted. It plummeted. If you're not getting any engagement right now, then it might not matter.

I'm not getting much.

Okay.

Yeah. So you can try just going down, but if you're going to pay for it, then that's going to be a business expense early on. We want to have a way for people to book with us for a sales call. We want to have a way for people to sign up with us to give us money.

Yeah.

And that's it. That's it. Like. Like prioritize that right now. Things you're going to spend money on later are like an email marketing system.

Right.

You don't need that right now. Things you're going to spend money on later, a website. I don't want you even thinking about doing a website yet because you don't have an ideal client yet. Right. You don't have a tried and true niche that you've gotten, you know, several thousand dollars from yet. You know, once you, Once you've done that market testing and you really understand who your ideal client is and what they're willing to spend money on, then I want you investing in the website and things like that.

Okay?

Now, something you might want to get right now is the domain, your domain name, like my name dot com. If you can get it, it's not available.

Okay, then check that.

Any variation on it.

Okay.

You know, any variation on it. If there's. Yeah, if there's like a business name that you're thinking you want to play with, then buy that as well. But don't. Yeah, try IO that. That. That's a good idea.

And I just need to buy the domain because like anything else, you start getting blasted with, like Buy this thing or that thing. When you start looking at all lock.

In the domain, you can get everything else later.

Okay.

It's basically you're just putting a pin in it, like, this is mine. You can't have it.

Okay.

Like, you're a dog and you're peeing on it like, I'm gonna lick it. It's mine. Anyway.

Right. If you're gonna use Zoom, that's.

Yeah, we're gonna use Zoom. Yeah, absolutely.

I've been using Google Meet for my stuff now, which is free. Is that okay? Or is there a reason why you go with paid Zoom account?

Yep.

Yeah, I. I will say I just finally upgraded my normal private Google account and got like my Google business suite thing. And I will honestly say I wish I had done it earlier because now I need to tell all my clients, hey, please email me on this one. I have a gazillion emails, working emails in my Gmail account. And that was just like an. And you know, everything from my. My bank account, everything is tied to my Gmail. Like, everything is my Gmail. Now I have to, like, move it all over. This is a typical me. I'm type A and every other aspect but my business stuff like that, that admin operative stuff. I wish I had done this earlier because I have a mess now and I'm trying to set it up now. Not expensive.

So something that you could do, Jason, is you could buy your domain name, set up an email to it, sign into a Google Suite with it, and set up your Google Suite subscription, and then you have it all set and done, and then later you can do your website with it. Okay, that's an option. But also, it's not necessarily something that you have to do right now because, you know, yeah, it is kind of a pain. But also by the time you have enough clients, it's like, oh, cool.

This is three years. Like, for me, it's three years of, like, trying, like, to, like. So that's what I'm talking about, like, a little earlier. Yeah.

Yeah.

Jason, you'll probably be at that point, like, a year from now. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. Does that help?

Yeah, no, it definitely helps.

Yeah. And the thing I like about acuity is that, like, as people sign up for shit, it stores their information, you know. So one of the questions that you want to have in the intake form when they sign up is the terms and conditions that they accept. You know that you're going to be emailing them because that way they've already opted into your email list. And so when you do sign up for an email marketing system like ActiveCampaign or Mailchimp, whatever you're comfortable with. At that point, you can just like, download the CSV file and then upload it, and then they're on your email list.

Okay. Right, Gotcha.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's.

It's so easy to get overwhelmed with all the back end stuff that we can possibly do in our businesses. I. It's always this balance of, like, what can you do that makes sense for you right now? And, like, what's the limit for how much time you should spend on it? Because you really should be spending more time on the visibility aspect of it. Right. Because no one can hire you and give you their money if they don't know that you exist. And if you're spending all your time on the back end in your business, like, you're not. You're not telling people you exist and that you can help them.

Right.

You know, if you're like the most productive person in the world and you can do it all, then I say go for it. But you're gonna have to change it and iterate it and redo it and all that stuff in the future.

Okay.

Yeah, but acuity scheduling, and you want the acuity scheduling that allows you to do subscriptions. I think it's around $30 now. $30 a month.

Okay.

Yeah. Good enough.

Yeah. Thank you.

All right. What other questions do.

You. Yes, Finished my bite. I wanted to ask once again for help to be able to explain what it is that I do. I was thinking I work with CEOs one on one, and I helped them to understand their why and translate it into a practical business strategy.

Okay.

That's just one of the versions. I.

No, no, no. I. I'm just. I'm trying to think of where to start. So this is something that is really a challenge for most business owners, especially when you're in a helping kind of industry, which most of my clients are. Is we want to use the term I help. Right. But what does that do? It makes you the hero of the story, makes you the savior, makes you the white knight that comes in on a horse with a sword and you slay the dragon. It makes your clients helpless. It makes them the princess in the tower who can just.

Now I know why. I don't. Oh, my gosh.

Like, you know, upward.

Yes, I agree.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So.

And we also want to be extremely specific, right? We want to be specific about, like, what is the pain that they're in right now and what are they hoping for in the future. Right. So figuring out their why so that they can have a strategy. Like, that's not specific enough. It's also, you know, the, the four columns I have you guys do all the time. We're talking symptoms, problems, solutions, outcomes. You've just pointed to a problem and a solution. Right. You're not in the symptom and outcome that they're thinking in. Right. Figuring out their, like, they don't know their why. That's the root of the problem thing that you're seeing. They may know that language, but they're not, they're not staying up late at night unable to sleep because they don't know their why.

I totally, like, I know it, like, now I can memorize it. And I'm, I hear myself quoting you to so many people. So I, I, I, I live and breathe by it. And this is why I'm too much in my head and I, I'm so much in my head that I cannot even even start. Like. And I'm constantly trying to take a step back and reinvent and experiment.

Yeah.

Help me with an interim version.

So actually, here's what I want you to do, because you and I can sit here and we can come up with something. We can do the guesswork, right, as to what is going to connect with your ideal clients. I want you to go to, like, Chris Lomas. I want you to go to the people that you've done some work for free, and I want you to ask them. How would you describe what I do?

Okay, ask them.

They are your ideal clients. They, they'll see like. And you can ask them, where do you feel like you started and what do you feel like our work is going to get you to.

So two questions. How would you describe. What I do? Right?

And like, what, what were the circumstances that you were struggling with before we started working together? And what do you, what outcome do you see this work getting you?

Okay.

Yeah. And then what you want to do is you want to say, you know this title of person who's struggling with these kinds of problems. Work with me so that they can get this outcome. They become the hero of the story. They become the person who realizes I have this problem. I'm called to adventure. I need, I need my guide. I need my expert. You're basically Yoda. You're the little green alien who's gonna come in and be like, help you need. Yes. I don't know. How does Yoda talk? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I normally don't just say if I Move. And now I get it, why I'm struggling, because I think I feel like this is way too long. This is. This I work with.

It's okay if it's long. I would rather it be long and crystal clear and obvious who it is you help and what you help them with than short and clever. Short and clever doesn't work. Short and clever makes sense to you, but it becomes, like, kind of a mystery to them.

Oh, my God. Okay.

Yeah, Right. You know, and. And I think this is where people get tripped up, is they see people like Simon Sinek who say, start with Y and then. But, like, they have the reach. They. They've written the book. They're well known enough.

They.

They did a ton of PR to make sure that everyone kind of understood what they mean. Right. So they're at the point where they can do that. Right. But they're also many years down. Down the road from you. Right. You'll be at that point someday. But right now, you have to be, like, obvious, brick to forehead, like, clear about who it is you help and what you help them accomplish.

You know what happened? Chris was speaking to Leah Turner's sister, and she now founded an NGO helping women with fertility.

Amazing.

At the same time, I received a voice message from her and from him. A voice message. And they both are sharing with me that they were talking to one another without mentioning my name. And Katie said, you're not talking about Dina, are you? Huge compliment. Right. So I. Well, I'm just saying that sometimes we don't know if we're doing something right because we're measuring ourselves by the financial results. And it just might take time. Right?

It takes time. It's not. It might take time. It will take time.

And I have one more question, if I can ask. I feel like with my post, I'm very consistent, and I feel like I want to step up and be more open. I feel like I'm very. Even though I'm consistent and people. But I'm not fully authentic. Any advice?

So what's something you tell your best friend about.

So much about? A lot. I talk a lot. I mean, I talk to my friends a lot about what I don't talk on LinkedIn. And it resurfaced with that podcast that I did. I almost had a panic attack afterwards because I set myself an intention to be open. And I was talking about my. My birth to my son on that podcast. I was talking about politics and all this, like, taboo. Taboo topics on podcast. And so when you say that the.

Podcast I Recorded yesterday was all about how it's good to talk about taboo shit for your business.

Really? Yes.

Yeah. Because it's memorable and it makes you relatable and, like, it gives people a way to access you in a way that they wouldn't otherwise have, you know? So I want you to imagine, like, we're all standing on stage, right, and we're in front of thousands and thousands of people, and none of them can see us because there's this huge canvas right in front of us. There's just, like, this huge canvas that's blocking us from view. And our job is to jab holes in it, you know, as much as we can. You know, here's my favorite kind of chocolate. Here's a fear I had as a child. Here's what I do for work. Here's this, here's that. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that people can start seeing through the holes and see us, right? So, you know, if you're. If you're wanting to be more authentic about, you know, yourself and share more personably on social media, a great place to start is to think of, like, what's a story that you found so funny that you immediately called your best friend and like, oh, my God, the funniest thing happened today. Weirdest thing happened, or I went on the worst date, or this happened or that happened. You know, what is that story? And then can it be turned into a piece of content?

Right?

Because it gives people a taste of your personality, gives people a sense of, like, what kinds of things you enjoy or find funny or amusing or whatever. It's usually not something that's super vulnerable. Right? I mean, unless you're like, hey, can I tell you about how I shit my pants today? Like, no, maybe don't share that story. But, I mean, it's like, you know, you found a parrot in your backyard, and it was obviously a pet, and you had to, like, figure out how to catch it. And then you had to figure out, like, what it ate. And then you had to figure out, like. Like, oh, where's it pooping in the house? Because I'm not seeing any poop. And then you notice that, like, it's pooping behind the. The curtains. And then you had to wash the curtains. Then you had to figure out where to post about where, you know, I found a parrot. Is anyone missing a parrot? And how, like, you had a pet parrot for them for two weeks. I. This has never happened. I'm just making this up. But, like, think of what those stories are and then share Them. You know, I do this with dating stories. Sometimes I'll. I'll share a story about, like, a really bad date that I went on. I've only done this, like, a handful of times, but people remember them. And I'll bring it back to. Yeah, I'll bring it back to a point about, like, sales and how they, you know, like, this is a shitty sales story tactic because it obviously didn't work. But you also don't have to. You don't have to bring it back to a personal or, I'm sorry, to a professional point.

Well, that was my first podcast. And let me tell you that there is a big difference between theory and practice, because once I found myself, then I completely was. I was not myself.

Yeah. And here's the Beauty of, of LinkedIn is that written content, you have. You have, like, so much editorial power.

Yeah.

You know, versus speaking. Like, you sometimes get wrapped up in a conversation and you stop and you kind of forget that's going to be dispersed, you know, broadly with a bunch.

Of people, you know, taken out of content because it will be edited out and then the question is not the full answer.

And like coconuts, like the coconut tree right now.

What tree? Coconut was.

It's a political thing that's happening right now, but it's something that's just gone out of context, you know? Anyway, does that help?

Yes, as always. Thank you. Thank you.

What other questions do we have today?

Is adding video content into your LinkedIn feed a faster way to grow or is it just different?

Just different.

Okay.

Yeah, How do I want to say this? Like, how do you, like, what kind of content do you tend to look at? What content gets your attention the fastest that you spend time on.

On LinkedIn, specifically?

Anywhere.

Anywhere. I watch jiu jitsu videos. I watch funny dog videos. And. Yeah, those two things, like my feed are those things.

Yeah.

Yeah. So you're a heavy video person. There are people who. Who really love lives. They love going and watching live video. They like connecting with people in that way where you're. You're kind of an active audience. There are other people who really only like reading. I'm one of those. I love reading. If a video. If there's a video and there's no way for me to read the captions, I'm not watching it. I also don't go and watch lives. But we have to create content that's diverse enough so that we're hitting each. Each target party. Right, Right. So video content for the people like you, who love video, text, Only content for the people like me who just love reading stuff. Live content when you're ready, when you, you don't have to right away. Kind of live video really does help you connect with some, like a certain subset of your audience. You know, like I said, like, you have to poke holes in that canvas. You have to give people multiple ways to, to experience you.

So would it be fair to say that in the beginning it's kind of like permission to play and just figure out what works and you can't really get it wrong as long as you're consistent.

Yep, yep. There's no getting it wrong. There's no getting it wrong. I mean, unless you're like the worst, bigoted, most racist, awful human being who's just gonna get canceled like that, which thankfully none of you are. There's no way to get this wrong, right?

I don't think my writing's very good.

That's okay.

So, so here's the thing.

Your writing will never get better unless you, you do it right. Only way to get better is to do. You can't think yourself into being a really good bike rider if you've never ridden a bike. You know, you can't imagine yourself into being a really good skateboarder by skateboarding twice. You know, you're literally just gonna die when you try to get up on the thing, on the, you know, the U shaped thing. I don't know the, I don't know terminology for skateboarding. Bad, bad metaphor. Like, you have to just go and write and post and let it be. Cringe. When I started, like, I look back sometimes at like what I posted four years ago when I first started writing for LinkedIn, I'm like, oh my God, how did I get clients this way? This is terrible. It's so embarrassing. And you know, it's just like, oh, but it worked. It worked. It showing up always works. You know, and people love being with someone in a journey. I mean, there's a reason why so many people resonate with Leah Turner. You know, people were with her on the whole journey and she brings people into the journey. You know, she's not perfect at it, but, you know, the fact that she's so open about it works.

You know.

And she's gotten much better over time. There's. If you, if you really want to get some inspiration here, go and read. Oh, crap, what's his name? Oh, Seth Godin. Go and read some. Yep, Seth Godin. His whole philosophy is create and create and ship. Like the weird thing about being a business Owner that also has to create all your own content and create all your own product is. We're, we're like the cousins of artists, right? We have to, we have to be constantly in tune with our creative powers. Right? The scariest thing about being an artist, however, is letting people see your art. Right? That's the scariest thing. You paint something, you write something, you do a piece of music, and then, oh, God, what if people hate it? And the only way to figure out, like, what your voice is, what your style is, is to release it and see what the response is, see what works. So just create and then ship it and don't think about it again. Create and ship it and don't think about it again. Create and ship and don't think about again. And you'll learn over time what you like doing and you'll learn over time what gets results. But you can't get the results and you can't figure out what works until you actually do it.

Yeah, I kind of obsessively post something and then look and see, did it work? And then 10 minutes later I'm like, did it work? And 10 minutes later I'm like, did it work? And I don't feel like that's going to work long term.

No, no, no, no, that's not, that's not going to help. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. I mean, get silly with it. You know, if, if, if you have a goal, here's a goal I want you all to play with. Go and make one friend per week on social media. Like, go and make a genuine friend. Find someone who just posts some really funny shit or post something that's really thoughtful. Go and comment on their stuff, really engage with them and reach out to them at the end of the week and be like, I just love your content. Do you want to be friends? Genuinely, I do this all the time. And, and I can't tell you how many people I've actually, like, ended up working with. I, as a client and also being their coach or their, their strategist. And also, like, it helps you because once you become friends with someone, if you're creating content, like, they're far more likely to want to comment on your stuff, you know, and you're far more likely to learn from them, you know, and then you're not getting your dopamine hit from, oh, my God, did it work? Oh, my God, did it work? You're getting your dopamine hit from, oh, my God, I have this connection now. Oh, my God, that's Such a funny response to my comment. Oh, I. I thought of something funny back, you know? You know, as folks with adhd, we really have to be cognizant of where we're mining our. Our dopamine from, you know? So, like, it's one of the reasons why I have everyone celebrate something, even if it was a shitty week at the beginning of each call. Because even if you just posted every single day and you were able to cross that off of your to do list, like, that is what matters, okay? It's not the amount of comments, not the amount of likes, not the amount of calls that you got booked. It's the fact that you did the action that needs to happen every day, right? The fact that you were able to go and write the thing and post the thing and cross it off the list, that is the win, right? If it happens to get a ton of engagement, great, that's cool. But that's not what matters. What matters is you showed up. You know, as business owners, we cannot tie our success to the outcome because we don't have control over the outcome. We get to tie our success to the action we're taking every day. We get to tie our success to being visible every single day, to putting ourselves out there, to being brave every single day, Because otherwise, it's never going to be enough. You're never going to have a moment. At the end of the day, we're like, cool, that's good enough.

I'm done.

I'm going to go make dinner and watch a show. Going to go binge Ted Lasso, which I just started. And by the way, I don't know what took me so long. It's such a good show. But, yeah, we. We have to really give ourselves credit for the action, right? Because if we keep tying it to that outcome and then the outcome doesn't happen fast enough, because, of course, it never happens fast enough. Then we get discouraged and we stop taking action. We think, oh, it's not working. I'm going to go try something else. And then the momentum that we started building here and the trust we started building with our audience there, we lose it, and then we have to come back and start all over again. Are you convinced?

Yeah. That was helpful.

Okay.

You know, and you have this amazing group of people that, like, if you're ever feeling stuck, you can. You can lean into them as well. Yeah. Alex, what were you gonna say?

Yeah, can I add two questions or. In comments exactly. Related to social media? Because, Jason, I feel like I also have that fear of like it's never good enough and I don't want to post it. And I'm in marketing and usually I feel like I should write it, be able to write at this point. And I probably can. I sometimes. And Katie, you can weigh in on this if it, if one should do it or not. Because I'm this panicker about like, if it sounds good enough, I sometimes run it through ChatGPT and have the, you know, 4.0or whatever's the current version and tell ChatGPT this is my LinkedIn post. I don't want you to change the voice or anything, but if there's anything you feel like needs to be optimized, you know, sometimes it's just like certain, like I don't know, changes the words around or something and it's like minimally changed and I feel like, okay. I had a proofreader go over it like I don't know, 10 years ago. I would sometimes ask my husband, I was like, hey, can you read over this real quick before I send it to blah blah. It just gives me a little bit of confidence. But I don't make ChatGPT change the voice or anything at all. It gives me a little boost of confidence.

Yeah. So I, I would actually prefer you guys read it yourself because that's what's going to help you become a better writer. Right. And I want you to read it as if you're the blue alien who's never been. If I were an alien and I had no idea about anything and I didn't know this person, I didn't know anything about their life and I had no idea about anything, would I understand what they're trying to tell me right now?

After you did all of this? I mean like more of like the cringe worthy like where you're like, did I make a mistake? Can I really hit send?

I actually want to challenge you not to do that anymore. I want you to send.

It goes against everything in me.

I know. But you know what? Just hit send. You're, you're so smart and you're so charismatic and you have such a beautiful voice, you know, like you getting so crunchy about that, like that's not doing you any favors. And you can, it's, it's almost like someone who has money anxiety, who's constantly checking their bank account to make sure like the money didn't go anywhere. It's actually not helping your anxiety. What you actually have to do is post the thing and show yourself that you're not going to die.

Maybe it's my. Maybe it is the background in corporate where you basically never allowed to make a mistake. Everything had to be perfect. And if that newsletter had one spelling mistake, someone's going to come in your office and going to chop your head off. Basically. Maybe that is okay. So maybe okay. Forget about it. That's why I said like Kitty way. And I do. I had one follow up question because of like what Jason said with the video content and everything. I. I do have a set of photos, but I can't keep using these professional pictures of myself all the time. I want to like, be more relatable. And I think Kate, you had that suggestion with like using the Tick Tock camera.

Yeah.

How do I do that? Like, I'm, I've never used Tick Tock. I sign up and I was like, okay, how do I like.

Can you use the app Cap kit?

Yeah, you can. I mean, there's so many different cameras on.

Tell me all or I need one here.

Okay.

So you open up Tik Tok. Yep. Can you see?

Yep.

You go to the bottom.

Yep.

Take a picture. And then it posted it to me.

And then over here on the right. Oh, it's doing music. You push down and then you hit save and you add it to your camera roll. And then you upload it to your. Your computer.

Okay. Because the first whatever I did, I immediately posted capcat also. Okay. Thank you, Dina. Capcut. And then that's how I want to.

Be cognizant of time. I want to do main takeaways and what you're committing to between now and the next call, which I think is two weeks from now.

Friday.

No, next. The next BYOB call.

And Friday it's not the B O Y O B.

That's Brave Biz Labs.

Ah, sorry.

How dare you misname my calls. Oh, I'm so offended.

No.

What are you taking away from today's call and what are you committed to do actioning on over the next two weeks? Who wants to go first? And we're going to popcorn this. So whoever goes first will pick the next person. Who picks the next person?

I'm going to speak to Chris and Danielle and. Oh my God. Oh, my God. What was the second thing? And I have to prepare two presentations and write. I'm also doing the same with the chat GPT. I'm checking my grammar. I'll try not to do it. And. I'm gonna. Yes. I wanted to share with you that I'm sharing a celebration. I finished my book the play to win. Remember that I was struggling with it.

Well done.

I finished and I was thinking about you the first thing and pokering into Alex. Thank you.

Main takeaway. Stop. Stop being a perfectionist because all my questions go back to trying to make it perfect. It's not going to be perfect and my to do is about perfectionism. I still haven't posted because I'm freaking out about posting the wrong thing. So at least one post per month. Per month, per week between now and our next call, like this weekend, next week.

Awesome. And then Monica.

Main takeaway is that the reminder that if even though people aren't necessarily active on LinkedIn does not mean that they're not there and seeing my stuff. And actually I just opened up my LinkedIn and I did have somebody from internal audit connect with me. So the universe is hearing me that another celebration that makes me happy. I am committing to at least put together one post with that's doing this whole like internal audit vibe.

So we'll. We'll see how that goes. Yeah. Yeah. I want to just remind everyone, you know, the election obviously is taking over all of our news feeds. Know that your clients are still there wanting solutions to their problems. It can feel really discouraging when, like there's so much politics being talked about and you feel like your stuff's not getting as much engagement and it's just going to be normal over the next few months. But know that your clients are still out there seeing your stuff. So keep posting. Stay consistent. Like that is what is going to keep business flowing to you. Right. And just because people are burnt out on having conversations online doesn't mean they're not seeing it. Right. Okay. Awesome. Have an amazing rest of your day. And we have Brave Biz Labs after hours tonight at 7pm so if you have any more questions, we can do that. And thank you all for your flexibility with rescheduling from last week. I really appreciate it. Okay.

Absolutely.

Bye.

Bye.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bye Bye.