BYOB Beginner Group Session 2024 12 04

So much fun. Hello.

Hello.

How are you?

I'm well. How are you?

Good, thank you.

I'm good. I. My computer randomly decided to restart just as we are starting. So I'm on my phone. What are you celebrating today?

Just continued excitement and clarity.

Good, good. Around what?

Around next steps and just knowing what I need to do. So I'm taking those steps but just so excited to feel like they're doable and I know what they are.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's everyone. Everyone approaches it differently. It's like some people, if they know the whole picture of everything, they get so overwhelmed that they can't do the little steps that is required of them and other people need to see the full picture before they can do the little steps.

Yeah.

So anyway, awesome. And Hi, Vaughn, how are you?

Hello.

Hello. What are you celebrating today?

What am I celebrating today? Holy moly. Lots of new collaboration and opportunities. I've done a ton of networking lately, so.

Awesome.

I'm planting seeds everywhere.

Something's gonna.

Yeah, something will sprout.

Yes.

What have you been doing for networking strategy?

I mean I wouldn't call it a strategy, but I mean I recently joined like a whole, a bunch of fractional groups so doing like, you know, some get to know you and then a friend and colleague and I spent all day Monday doing a strategy where she just started her own HR consulting group. So we spent like a whole day creating content for an offer, which I want to ask you about.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Later in the call, but so we're going to kind of tag team it together.

Cool.

Awesome. Great. Well, sorry, I'm on my phone because my computer decided to restart randomly. Awesome. We have Margaret just joined so she should be joining today as well. Why don't we dive right into some questions and then I have a little training I want to jump into, but let's wait until we're at a critical mass. So Yvonne, you mentioned you have a question.

Yeah. Based on your advice, we. What we're going to do is we're going to do a pop up training. The first one is going to be on writing impactful annual reviews. Like impactful reviews made easy.

Yeah.

And so it's gonna. We're really gonna talk in high generalities and we're gonna offer like a freebie kind of outline PDF to anyone who attends. But then we're gonna have you know, kind of like an ebook version or a larger version of like all the scripts and all the how to's and whatever for a dollar amount. And then, you know, we'll offer a workshop for anybody who needs help with customized individual scenarios for their company, team, whatever. I'm just wondering around pricing those things.

Okay, so walk me through. Because you're doing it as a collaboration.

Yeah.

Who, like when you. If they sign up for the more expensive thing, who's taking that ovary? It's gonna. Is it gonna be both of you helping them with it? Yeah, it is. Okay, cool. Yeah. So, all right, here's how I would do it, is have it be how big is their following on social media and how big is their email list? Do they have one? No, no. Do they have a following?

Actually, I'm not sure. I mean, she has a pretty big network, but she's like new to the your own business kind of thing and newer to Link, like using LinkedIn for personal purpose or like professional purposes.

Let me check her out.

Yeah, okay. Because whenever we think about, you know, do you want it to be a free webinar, a paid webinar or whatever, we want to think about how many people you could realistically get to sign up for it. And usually like, you know, if you have a pretty involved or, you know, engaged following, then you can do one over the other.

Yeah, she has about 2,000 followers.

Okay, cool. So here's what I would do is I. And you're doing it for January, February. Right.

Well, the pop up training is going to be this month because this is when managers are writing reviews. We're going to offer the. Yeah, the workshop more of like how to give feedback, how to deliver reviews in January. And then we have like a pipeline of other things that we've talked through of like, yeah, HRE type stuff for managers. And really the demographic we're going for are teams or companies who don't like have a huge HR team.

Got it.

Because they need these things if they have their own HR team. Most of these things are probably already stuff that they have.

Got it. So here's what I would do is I would do a free webinar which you guys are already talking about. I would do like the intro to it at the end of the webinar. I would say if you want our scripts, if you want like the templated thing of our scripts about how to give feedback to set yourself up for giving reviews in January, February. Then here it is. You give them the link to buy it. I would set it up in. What's that? It's not Etsy. It's a gumroad.

Gumroad, Gumroad.

Because that way it can just go in process and they can have it delivered to them automatically. And then I would also say.

Or do I just do it through my website? Is there a.

Here's, here's what I like about Gumroad versus doing it through your website is that Gumroad has all of the verification that it has been provided. And what like, and I don't think you're gonna get anyone like this, but like, let's plan for the worst and expect and hope for the best is someone could say, oh, I paid for it, I never got it right. And then they could do a chargeback which will up everything in your, in your payment system.

Oh, gotcha.

And it'll just make, it'll just be a headache that you don't want to deal with. But if they're buying it through Gumroad, I know that they do take a, like a small percentage, but still, it's just, it's so much better to have it handled by someone else. Right. Because it's just like it's the delivery system as well. Okay, sell that in the webinar. And then you can also say for those of you who have, you know, some challenging reviews coming up, if you need to sit down and talk through exactly how you're going to go point by point with this person, understand how to approach it based on their personality type and all this stuff, we're actually offering a half day workshop where you get to sit down with us and we go through all of your reviews. We sign an NDA beforehand so that we're not walking away, you know, able to talk about anything you share with us. Yeah, right. And if you want more information on that, then book a call with me. Okay. Right. And. And you can also say we can, we can bill this to you. We can also send the invoice to your accounting department, whatever. Yeah. You know, but I think that you charge like, like 2 to $4,000 for. Right. And you said we also. If you want to send us stuff beforehand, we will, we will look through it and annotate it so that walk into this, like hitting the ground running and helping you formulate how you're going to phrase everything. And we also provide the recording after the fact because I think that would be incredibly valuable to folks who are just starting out. Yeah, I'm sorry, Who are just like, you know, like starting out this process and like giving their first round of feedback. That's, that's challenging to give. Right.

So what was that last part like? We, we signed the NDAs and you said something about we provide the recording. Is that what you said?

Yeah, we'll give you the recording of that half day call. Okay. Yeah. And then, you know, part of what you're going to do is like, you're going to market the webinar and that's all your marketing. Right. And then after the webinar, your marketing, the, the training manual with the, with the templates, anyone who buys that, you're following up with them, seeing if they need a half day workshop. Yeah, right. Yeah. And I would also email through anyone in your network saying, hey, I'm offering this thing with this other person. Here's, you know, what we'll help you with, and here's the problems it'll solve and here's the desired outcome. People generally sign up for this, hoping to get. And you know, here's my background in this, here's her background in this. And if you're interested, here's a link to book a call and then you're selling that through the call.

Yeah.

And really like frame up. You know, giving this review in this way versus this way could save the company, what, $200,000. Because if you give the feedback shitty in a shitty way, it could actually send this person on their way. They could, they.

There's actually a number of problems that we talk through. One is like, how do you give reviews to your top performer without demotivating them? Because 90% of the time after review, we see a different performance, even in top performers, because no one wants feedback. So how do you keep them engaged through their review? How do you work with your kind of solid performers and keep them motivated? And then like, underperformance is a whole other.

Yeah.

Scenario and scripts.

That is all important, but we also want to bring it back to the bottom line. How much will it cost you if they leave? Yeah. You know, how much will cost you if they don't? If they stop performing at the level that they're at right now?

Yeah.

You know, if they leave, what could that cost the team? Right. Because anytime someone leaves, it creates churn. Yeah, yeah, right. Because who knows, you could have someone in there who's like, hey, I don't give direct feedback, but my HR team does. I should, I should set them up with this. You know, ideally this is something that you do every year where you got, you get brought in to work with HR teams and help them really prepare for each one of these review cycles.

Yeah.

Like, how cool would that be? Yeah, right. And then that could open the door to you doing some kind of coaching relationship with Them.

Yeah.

Right.

So how much for the gumroad manual?

I, I would do one or $200. Right.

We were like 199. Sounds like a reasonable thing.

I would do 197. It's, it's a weird psychological thing. People are, are more likely to buy when it ends in a seven, which sounds. We're the weirdest animals.

Yeah.

So. But yeah, 197. And you could, you could also give them like a discount. Like it's 147 if you buy it, you know, by midnight tonight.

Okay.

You know, like a special deal for those of you who've shown up and like obviously are invested in this. We want to make sure that this is accessible to you.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, something that you could do after the fact is reach out to everyone after like as they're going through the review period and say, hey, you know, this is like prime time for HR folks to get burned out and to feel overworked and stressed and this and that and the other thing, if you're feeling this way, I'm doing this other workshop or like this reset or whatever and then get them like on the hook to talk to you.

Yeah.

You know, I would also like for everyone to register through your acuity account so that you have the list. Right. And of course we trust you to be able to share the list with your, your comrade at arms. But like the worst is when a bunch of people register and like you're bugging the other person for the list and you can't get it.

Yeah.

Right. Cool. Does that help?

Yes.

Awesome. Cool. I want to welcome Margaret. Welcome. Hello Margaret. Would you like to introduce yourself to everyone? Everyone?

Yes, everyone. I'm Margaret. Yeah. This is my, this is my, my, my new commitment for the next, for the next year to have some accountability and hopefully grow the business a little. I have come from the world of fundraising and I'm also a certified coach and my niche has been for the last five plus years doing fundraising coaching. My ideal client looks like a non profit executive, must raise money but really doesn't know how to do it well, has a lot of dread and I kind of do a combo of coaching and consulting to help them figure out the how and find some more compelling in their fundraising style. Over the course of this year I'm feeling a pull towards a little bit more personal development coaching as well. So yeah, I have a, I have a manuscript of a book. I had some changes in my life that I'm not sure what the schedule is going to be on that. But I think that's sort of pulling me in a. In a new direction. And I still have a very wobbly relationship with LinkedIn, so I'm hoping that being involved in this group will help me lose. Lose my ick a little bit more. Cool.

Welcome, Margaret. Nice to see you. By the way, I don't think you should have the ick.

I.

It still sticks out in my head because I love the post so much. But of the nicknames, one that you did of like Marge, you know, all the, all the things.

Now everybody knows that nickname. Yeah, I've had a few people start calling me Grit, but yes, thank you, Yvonne. I appreciate that. And it was fun seeing that it. That then you did a great post, not ever getting a nickname.

I know.

Yeah. Yeah.

Awesome. Thank you. Welcome. And then, Allison, do you want to introduce yourself to Margaret? Because Yvonne and Margaret know each other from. From the 30 day content sprint that I did, so.

Okay.

Well, nice to meet you, Margaret.

My name is Allison and I am stepping out of higher education administration into belonging work for organizations and so helping them to increase the sense of belonging among employees, students, you know, congregations, anything like that. So it's very new. I'm really excited about it and I, I love the fact that you have fundraising experience. Well, that's your thing, like, because I just think higher ed and how important that was. So. Yeah, I feel like I can learn a lot from you.

Yes, we. We work. I have a couple business partners and we, when we do group work or trainings and we have a lot of clients and higher ed where we teach kind of. We have a class called how to. How to be a Mega Fundraiser. So it's teaching coaching skills to fundraisers to help them, you know, relate better and create more intimacy with donors and end up getting much bigger gifts. Gifts of a lifetime. Awesome.

That's incredible. I might actually need to use you for the gay birthday club for that.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway. Awesome. All right. And we always start off with a celebration. So what are you celebrating today?

I am celebrating that I am living in Crested Butte this winter, that I made that happen. And it is so gorgeous out my window is just covered with snow. I love winter. And. And I am where I want to be.

Amazing.

Geographically.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's amazing how it really does shift everything for you energetically when you're in a place that you really enjoy being.

Yeah, I mean, I live in Boulder, which doesn't suck in Boulder, Colorado, but this is, this is an up level, not going to Lie. Yeah, this is pretty nice.

Awesome.

Yeah.

All right, well, I wanted to do a quick little training just to get you guys thinking about the importance of having a really simple offer. This is something that I'm going to just, like, nail home every single time I have an opportunity for because it is so important. Because I'll say this time and time again, a confused buyer doesn't buy. Right. And what tends to confuse people? Lots of little details that they have to remember. Right. And what do we do when we're confused? And then we're asked to give money or to pay for something, we. We kind of lean back and we're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Nelly. Like, slow on down. This is a lot. I need to process and understand all the little bits and pieces. Right? This is too much right now. Give me some time. Right? And then what does time do? Time kills deals. Yep. Yeah. The longer someone takes to think about something, the less likely they are to actually buy. Right. So this is one of the things I train in holistic selling. If you haven't gotten there yet, then don't worry. When we get to the point where we talk about our offer, it's really tempting to, like, want to do like a whole slide presentation. And here's what we're going to cover. And here's another thing, right. The person in front of you, unless they are a very particular disc type, which if you want to go and do. Side note, do you want to go and get your disc assessment that is something that's available to you? I always forget to tell people about this. It is something that's available to you in BYOB Beginner. So all you have to go in. Forget which section then. But like, you can go and submit the. What is it?

I think it's under resources.

Resources. Thank you.

I'm a disc certified person, so.

Okay. So you know. You know. Yes. Yeah, yeah. So there's a type in there that's called the C type. And they're very analytical. They want to know every single little particular. Right. But not everyone's a C type. A lot of people aren't. I'm not. I don't give me the details. I just want to know the broader picture and I'm ready to make a decision. So anyway, so you're instinctively going to want to like, like outline every single part of your program and tell everyone all the information because you feel like that gives you credibility. That'll convince them to buy from you. It'll actually confuse them, make them not want to buy from you. As odd as that sounds. So what we want to do is we want to just keep it as streamlined and simple as possible. And then if they have questions, to trust them to ask the question at the end. Right. So I did this with every single one of you. When we got to the point where we were talking about this program, I slowed it down. I brought my voice down to about 50% of its normal speed. Right. So you could really digest every word that I was saying. And I explained BYOB is 12 months. That's the duration. That's the commitment. Gave you a little silence to. To absorb it. You get two group calls per month, little time. Those calls are on the first and third Wednesday at 11am and I only do this. I only explain that detail because it's a group and those times are fixed. And if someone has another engagement at those exact times, it's not going to work for them. Then we go into the extras. You also get access to the video library of trainings. In addition to that, you also get access to all these different community calls. And then finally, the investment or the price is this, or if you want to pay in this way, it's this which works best for you. Right. And I'm, I'm referring to my conversation with all of you because I want you to see, like, I know you're part of your brain's like, no, but I have to give them more information. I tell them more about, like, what we're going to do and this and that and the other thing. But I didn't have to do that necessarily with you. We already did that in the beginning of the call where we talked through what you were struggling with and what you wanted instead. Right. It was a light kind of bounce off of like. Oh, you're struggling with that. Yeah, I teach. I teach that in this program. Oh, you want that. Cool. I have a whole strategy to help you get that in the program. I don't think any of you asked me exactly how I teach the thing or exactly how this happens, or your clients typically won't ask those things. But this. The more simple you make the, the information, the better. Allison, I think you have a question.

Oh, no, sorry. I had an it.

Okay. Awesome. You know, it's. And. And this is a model for one on one coaching or for one on one consulting when you're doing something that's a longer sales cycle. Say you're working with an organization. Right. We want to. We want to kind of like break this call up. Right. We want to do the first part of the, the discovery call, which is genuinely just understanding what their problems are. Right. When we get to the proposal presentation call and we're going through the proposal, what's, what's a way that you get really confused? Math. As soon as I have to do math and I'm like trying to add things up in my head, I'm like, it, no, I, I, this is too hard, I'll go somewhere else. Right. So when you're doing a proposal, we want totals. How much is it going to cost? Option one, option two, option three, how much are they? You can have a little breakdown of what goes into it. But what I find sometimes, often actually not even just sometimes, like I would say 70% of the time, is when people see the breakdown of what goes into that bigger number, they start trying to take things out. Oh well, maybe we don't need that part. But they don't know what the fuck they're talking about. Maybe you have to do an assessment to understand what's going on within their organization to be able to do the rest of it. And they're like, oh well we understand what's going on in our organization. No you don't. They're the reason. And then you end up fighting about that one thing and trying to convince them that they need to buy it. Right. So we do not really want to like break down the line items unless they really specifically ask for it for a reason. Any questions on this? Cool.

Any?

Aha.

Sorry. I mean I feel like this is kind of in the point of the sales call. You've already done the listening. You, you feel comfortable that the offer you're making is a good fit. You have kind of their consent to suggest it, but they already understand the big impacts or how it's going to address. Okay, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is just where you're talking about the nitty gritty of the program or the like.

If we're going on for 12 minutes about the details of the program, like that's in a 30 minute call.

Yeah, yeah.

That's what you're saying.

This is like the non pitch sales call. Right. So typically if say you do a sales call in 30 minutes, the first 20 to 25 minutes of that call are them talking. Yeah. And you asking, oh well, what's frustrating about that or what's something else that you're struggling with and what's the big goal here?

Right.

Really getting into it with them about what's going on for them. Right. And you're doing just, just normalizing, like oh my God, a lot of my clients struggle with that. Or, you know, like 50% of the people who work with me have a similar goal. And I have a whole portion of my program built out to help you get there. Right. I haven't told you any of the details about that part of the program, but for them, they're like, oh, cool, I'm in the right spot. I'm talking to the right person.

Cool.

Okay. And then their stress level goes down because it's like, it's like going to the doctor with a mole that you're worried about. I mean, like, doctor, like, I have this mole. Should I be worried and then be like, oh, I see them all the time. It's usually not a big deal. Send it off. If it's something to worry about, then we'll talk about it then. But I wouldn't stress right now. Okay? You know, it's being taken care of. There's going to be steps to take at some point, but right now, don't worry. Yeah, but at that point, like, at this point where I'm talking, you've already done all that. You've already, like, kind of alluded to parts of the program. You've told them, like, this is what I work on all the time. Deep breath, you're with the right person. All that jazz.

Clear.

Okay. Anything else on this before we move to open Q and A?

You were just as I just wanted to. Obviously, I've gone through this with you several times before, but I have this post it note on my computer to, I don't know, smile, slow down, pause. Whenever I'm on a sales call, I'm like, smile. You know, it's like, take a breath.

Slow.

Like uncomfortably slow.

Yeah.

And then I remind, like. Because one of the things for me is I hate fast talking salespeople. It's almost like they're trying to confuse you and pressure you into buying something. And then I'm like, danger Will Robinson. Which ages me, by the way. But I'm like, danger, danger.

It's like, slow down.

Like, no. Like, the less pressure, the better. Like, let people. But anyway, so I still have it. I think I wrote this like almost a year ago now.

Yeah. But you know what? Even you saying that when someone's fast talking, you don't trust them. Right? Right. And. But it's funny because most of the salespeople that you've encountered who talk fast, I will bet good money that it wasn't that they were trying to confuse you. It's that they were really nervous. They didn't realize that when, like, they were nervous and they started talking faster. Yeah.

Or excited about.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or they were trained on a really shitty sales process that had them explaining too much. Right. So. Yeah, but. But the. The impact is the same. Oh, wow. It's like fine print on a contract. Slow down. I need to look, I need to really understand what I'm getting into here.

No, you made a great point with the doctor thing.

Right.

Because who would you rather have the doctor who's like, well, could be this. It could be this, could be this, could be this. I'm gonna look at this, I'm gonna run these tests, blah, blah, blah. And you're like, oh, my God. Or something. Got it. We'll send it to the lab. I don't think it's anything to worry about now. Right. Like, who would you rather work with?

Exactly. Yeah.

I love the idea of the pause too, because just. Yes. Anding what you're saying, like when somebody. Not only when they speak fast, but if I finish speaking and there's not even like a half a second beat before they start talking. Doesn't feel like they heard you.

Right.

It doesn't feel like they heard me. Like they already were planning in their head what they were going to say next. Yeah, I love that pause. Like, just. I'm just going to process this for a minute and then respond.

Yeah, yeah. It's almost like you're handing them jelly beans, like, one at a time. But, like, if you were just to hand them, like, a whole bunch of jelly beans, would you expect them to just go and try to chew them all in one, like, Big Gulp? No, like, get. Hand them one at a time. They'll take it. Okay, next one. Right? And then you give them another. And then you give them another. Right.

My husband eat jelly beans.

Just saying.

Are they brand name, like Jelly Belly or are they off brand? No.

Total side note. But he's gonna be so embarrassed if I share this. But I will find random jelly beans throughout the year because that's like his gateway candy, right? And, like, he will hide them.

I don't even.

It'll be like November and I'll find a jelly bean on the couch.

And I'm like, what's going on? Where's your stash?

Oh, my God, we're gonna broadcast that. He'll. He'll. The whole world will know that. No, but seriously, when someone gives you directions to go someplace, like, I don't know about you. When they're like, oh, yeah, go down on the street, take a right and then take a left and then go down the road. And then when you see the tree, it's like, I don't know what the you're talking about. I'm gonna just use Google Maps. Right. But if they're like, okay, so you want to go down to the end of the street, right. You're gonna take right at the stop sign. All right. You're gonna get to the next intersection and you're gonna take a left. Like, I'm far more likely to remember the slow directions than the super fast ones. Right. And that builds trust. Like, if I can trust you to give me the right directions to like drive from point A to point B, far more likely to come to you for other stuff. Right. So it's small, but it has big impact. All right, cool. Any other. Any other comments, questions on this part? Okay. And for those of you who haven't gone through holistic selling yet, like, once you go through and you see like the other parts of the sales call, it'll make a lot more sense. Okay, cool. What questions do you have? Anything and everything.

It might be in the holistic selling, because that's my plan for today. But is there a CRM that you recommend in there or.

I actually don't recommend you guys use CRM at this point in your business.

Okay.

Yeah, it sounds sexy and it sounds official and professional and all the things, but CRMs are really helpful when you get to the point where you're managing between like 30 and 300 potential leads. Right. Right now, like, you're gonna do your market research interviews.

Right.

You know, typically people get two or three clients throughout that process. Right. You might get seven people who are like, oh, my God, I'm super interested in this. Right. You can manage seven people.

Yeah.

Right. And really you're doing it through Acuity, which keeps all their information, their name and their. Their email. Okay, yeah, let's. Let's get you dialed in on your messaging and how you're getting clients first. And then that's really BYOB Advanced as well as we start building up infrastructure of the business.

Okay. And then LinkedIn, what is it LinkedIn sales would be at that point too?

No, you don't really need it because you're not cold DMing.

Okay.

Right. You, I mean, if you want to cold dm, I'm never going to tell you, like, absolutely don't do it, but I actually don't recommend it. Right, right. Because a, it pisses people off. Right. And so, like, I want you focus more on creating content that people really resonate with so they feel like they know you and trust you. And then when you start talking about the work you do, they're like, oh, I want that. Right. If they're getting cold pitched by you in the dms. Yeah, they're gonna be like you and disconnect from you, and then they don't want to interact with you. Right, right, right. It also, I've done. I've done a lot of work, like, to test this to send. So to get a sales call from cold dms, it typically takes about a hundred messages.

Yeah.

Customized messages. Right. I then went. So knowing this, I went and set a timer and sent people, like, a funny, like, cold message that's like, hey, I'm. I'm doing this experiment to see how long it takes to cold message people. This is not actually a cold message. So if you want to respond with a picture of your pet, then please do, but don't feel obligated to respond otherwise. And then I just. I just edited their first name. Now it took me something like, like, God, 40 minutes to go through and do 20 to really copy and paste find them. Right. And then. But if I were to go through and, like, look through their profile and, like, find something that's interesting and update it, it would take four and a half hours for me to do 20. So if you have to times that by five, that's a ton of time for one measly sales call that has a lower close rate because you called DM them.

Maybe. I'm not thinking. Maybe it's LinkedIn Premium. Is that the same thing? Like, where I can see who's interacting with my profile?

So, I mean, here's what I want you to be wary of with premium. Once you go premium, you can never go back.

Okay.

Right. Because once you are premium, if you cancel it, LinkedIn will tank your engagement.

Okay, good to know.

Because they want you paying. And once you show that you're willing to pay, once they're like, come on, keep paying me.

Got it.

Right. So if you already have premium, you can try to cancel. I would. I would cancel before you start creating consistent content, but just be aware of that. But you don't necessarily need it because, like, I mean, it's cool to see who's kind of stalking you, but it really doesn't make a difference. I've never. I've never gotten more like a client because I figured out who was stalking me.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah. Of course.

It hasn't helped. I mean, I Could try to cancel it. But, yeah, I tried it, thinking that maybe they would give me a little bit better boost, but it didn't really work that way either.

No, no, I mean, and it's, it's cool because you do get some analytics, you know, to see, you know, a little bit more information about what posts are more successful and things like that. So it's not bad, but there aren't really any tools in there that, you know, make it worth it for us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, maybe I should cancel now.

Yeah. I mean, especially if you haven't been creating consistent content in a while.

No, I had a death in my family at the end of October and went completely dark for like a month and a half. So, yeah, I've posted twice since then.

Okay, fair. Yeah. So, I mean, you might a good time. Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

But just don't, don't be super discouraged if the first few times you post, if it's like, whoa, what happened? Everyone hates me. It's just LinkedIn.

It already feels that way.

Yeah, people don't hate you, Margaret. They love you.

Now hate me, but I just feel invisible. I don't feel hated.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay, cool. Any other questions on that?

No.

Okay, cool. What else? What else we got?

I mean, I, I'm joining late. I'm just feeling it, like, not oriented yet to, like, how to kind of get started or what the. You know.

Yeah. So where I want you to start is in the discovering your niche portion of the program. Right. And you're going to do this specifically for the new niche that you want to introduce. Right in there. There's a bunch of templates that you can use for emails to send out to get people to sign up for posts you can share to LinkedIn or any other social media platform. And then it's also a full breakdown of. Here are the exact questions that you ask. They are purposely vague.

So this is. Sorry, for me to start doing interviews for.

Exactly. Yeah. Like, the interviews are honestly the biggest indicator of success. Right. I've had clients who have, you know, worked with me for a long time. The ones who dive into the interviews the fastest are the ones that get clients fastest and start feeling really confident in their business. So. And if you want to also go through empathetic marketing and holistic selling, and if you need help setting up acuity, there's a whole training on that acuity setup. Okay, perfect. Yeah. So, but, yeah, like, but like, the most important part right now is the interviews. Okay, yeah, cool. What else we got? What are the questions.

Which is a.

Small one, but I'm trying to figure out. On my LinkedIn right now it says that I am a full time PhD candidate because I wanted it to not be blank when I left where, you know, where I was previously working. I'm finding different things when I look at what people have as their, as their role. And I was wondering if you had any suggestions. I, I saw somebody from this. I think it was Monica's. I saw hers and she had like chief data enthusiast, which I thought was adorable. I wanted to do Chief Belonging Officer, but my husband said that that didn't sound like anything to him. But he works in.

Okay, so Monica, just to. To be clear, she's kind of bridging the gap right now because she's also looking for a job to be a stopgap as she's building this. So her tagline right now is geared towards that. It's not geared towards getting clients. Okay, so our taglines on LinkedIn. This is a great question. Our taglines on LinkedIn cannot be about us. Okay, Right. It's not about us because like, for someone who feels like they don't belong or they're having issues with retention in their organization, like are they going to see that and make the jump from oh, she's a Chief Belonging officer to I can pay her money and she'll solve my problem.

Got it.

Yeah. Yeah. So you can. Absolutely. And this is something you're going to change. All of you are going to change multiple times as you grow your business and as you change it. I recently updated mine from whatever it was last time. The Stop being a weenie stays the same. But you know the other stuff I change, we want to. There's a great book by Donald Miller called Building a Story Brand. And in it he explains why it's so important in our marketing. And our tagline, as small as it is, is part of our marketing strategy. Our marketing has to make our clients the hero of the story. Right. So which is why you'll see a lot of, like, you'll see a lot of people saying, I help so and so and so and so. Who, who is the hero in that? Yeah, the business owner. I'm the hero. I'm going to come in and save you. You're the damsel in distress. You're helpless. Right. Okay. Like that's not inspiring, you know, versus this type of person works with me to solve this problem, who does that make me partner or. Yeah, that makes me like Phil the Half Goatman Hercules. Right. The Danny DeVito character. Right. I'm just the person that they come to when they have this big goal. I'm Yoda. Right. You get to be the guide. So I highly recommend reading that book for one. It's fascinating. Fascinating how. How we can incorporate story called again, building a story brand. I have it somewhere.

Yeah.

He has some really great resources too, of like, how to build your, like, quick what you do, who you serve kind of thing on his website. I used it when I was back in corporate to help my teams, like, come up with their mission statement. To be clear on, like, this is what we do. It was actually really useful.

But yeah, 100. It's.

Yeah.

Just Google Donald Miller. Yeah, it'll come up. He spoke at a conference I attended and he was really.

Yeah, engaging. So, yeah, we always want to think about how do we make our ideal client the hero of the story. Right? And I know I'm g to say that and like, brains are going to be like, oh, my God, like, I have to create like a whole novel then of how. Of how, like, they're the hero. And this is the. How they started. This is their call to adventure. And this is this, and this is this, and this is this when we're creating content. So you all know the. The Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell, that model. Okay, so just rough, rough breakdown of it. You have a hero, you have the main character. Something like their life is going on the same way it always has. But then something interrupts it either. Like some. They reveal something about themselves. Something happens in their world, and they really don't have a choice. They get called to adventure. And their first step on that adventure is finding the guide, right? They have to find someone who can show them what to do, right? And then as they're figuring out what to do and learning all the things, they develop skills, they gain tools, they. They find some enemies, they start growing and changing and becoming someone different, right? And it all leads to the first battle, right? Which is, you know, it could be like Allison, for example. It could be like the first battle is. Is convincing the chairs of the board to change stuff about the mission statement, right? To make the organization a place where people. More people feel like they belong, right. Usually then they also. You kind of feel like, oh, well, that was the big thing. Cool. But then something else happens and they have a complete freak out. They have to go in the cave. They have to have an internal, like, breakdown and kind of come to terms with who they are now. And then they have the next major battle. And this is usually the big one, right? And they go through it and they. All the trials and tribulation, tribulations attributed, attributed to it. And then there's coming home because we're not the same person anymore. Coming home is hard, right? You're, you're, you've grown, you've changed. People don't expect you to be different. They want you to be the old person that they expected, you know, way back in the day. So when we're thinking about talking to our clients, we don't have to tell that whole big arc. What we have to do is just zoom in on a part. Here's, here's when you realize you need help. Here's your call to adventure. You know, like, here's what it's like when you start developing this skill and you start seeing how impactful it is, right? Here's the first big challenge my clients are going to face, right when we're talking about like the, the aspirational stuff that our clients want. It's not just a mansion, it's not just a fancy car. It's not just all the amazing good things. People actually really like hearing what's the next demon I have to fight? Like, what am I going to be stressed out at three levels from now? You know, like something that you all may face at a certain point in your business is having to pay a $100,000 tax bill. That's gonna hurt. But for you to get to that point, think of like how big your business is going to be. Think of what your life would be like. That sounds awful to have to pay $100,000 in taxes on your business. But it's a problem that's going to happen because everything else is so good, right? You guys get to figure out what that is for your ideal clients. What's the devil in the next level? So in your content, I don't want you to overthink this, but in your content, as you're talking about your ideal client, you get to zoom in on each little portion of this hero's journ. And if you haven't done any reading on it, I urge you to go and just look up Joseph Campbell. It'll ruin every movie you ever watch, but it's, it's fascinating. That help? Okay, any questions on that.

Now?

Okay, cool. For the time being though, should I put my current work as like consulting or do I just leave it? Right now it's PhD candidate.

Yeah. So I would change it to team leaders because that's who you're going after right now. Right. Or I know we talked through a bunch of options for you to. To go after, but you could say team leaders bring me in to increase retention, to inspire collaboration, because it's all about what they want and, and like, how you. How they get it through you is kind of an aside. By fostering a sense of belonging. I would do something like that, you know, if you wanted to go the church route. You know, churches bring me in to increase signups, enrollment. What's the term?

Membership.

To increase membership by creating a community of belonging in diverse communities. Yeah.

And I should only pick one.

Pick one. Yeah. Because otherwise it gets confusing.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thanks.

What other questions do we have? And when I say question, it doesn't necessarily have to be a perfect question. It could be like, here's something I have no idea about. Can you kind of, like, drop it at your doorstep and can you make sense of it? What are you worried about.

This moment? I feel super worried about giving up a. You know, a niche where I am. I think we talked about this, certainly in a zone of excellence, you know, like, I do. I know how to do this fundraising thing, but branching into a different niche feels terrifying.

What's terrifying about it?

Well, it feels like starting over, you know, And I know I'm not, like, walking away from my six years in business so far, because everything I've learned will. Will mean more, but, yeah, I don't feel sort of credentialed in the same way. It feels like a much bigger space, you know, personal growth space. Like, you know, I know there are plenty of other fundraising consultants out there, but it's a much smaller group that, you know, fundraising coaches and consultants. Then, yeah, you know, life and leadership coaches, executive coaches, personal growth space. It feels sort of nebulous and at the same time that I feel called towards it. I certainly have, like, a historic judgment about it, even though that's historic, but it's still, every once in a while.

You know, what's the historic judgment about it?

I used to say about myself, like, you know, even though I grew up in Boulder, Colorado, like, I'm definitely not woo, woo. Like, probably not even one woo will you get from me, you know, so it was a.

I love that point of.

Point of pride, just, you know, just to try to fit into my family, to be, like, much more cerebral and hyper achiever driven. And it's not who I am now on any level. Embrace my quirky and my own journey, all of those things. But it's still. I still hear, like, I. I Get this judgment of, like, too much, you know, too much woo. Yeah.

Well, okay, so for one, that gets to be like an element of your brand, you could be the woo skeptic, right? Because like, that builds so much trust with the clients that, like, are like, that little do woo, but, like, they need the help. Right. And here's someone who delivers the help but is open about being a woo skeptic.

Well, I'm not sure I'm a woo skeptic anymore, but yeah.

Formed woo skeptic.

Recovering woo skeptic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I used to be super skeptical about this. Like, I used to think, whoa, like, like, back off. I don't need your crystals. I don't want any of this. Like, you know, you get to name it, right? Because it talks.

It.

It both speaks to your own personal journey and it builds trust with the people who might feel the same. Right? Yeah, that's one element. And then also, are you. Are you at all acknowledgeable within the restaurant scene or the fashion scene? They more so, like, you have. You have a couture brand, right? You have a couture brand. It's very, very niche. There's a very, very small population of people who could hire you for this. If you want to grow, what's the next step? You have to come up with a preta Porter, like a ready to wear line.

Nordstrom's. Yes.

You have to create these brands, connections with other. With other shops. That makes you more accessible to the broader population. Right. So I don't want you thinking about this as like, you're kind of starting over. I want you to think about it as you're. You're coming up with like a ready to wear line. Right. Because it's. The transformation you offer is very similar to the transformation you offer folks who are doing fundraising. Right?

Yeah, absolutely. It's. Yes, the journey is very parallel. It just. Like we don't have to agree that making more money is automatically the agenda for an engagement.

Exactly. But you're offering, like, here, here's the T shirt version of this. Right? It's more accessible. More people get to benefit from it. They get to have this incredible experience with you, but they don't have to spend this, you know, or they don't have to fit into this kind of this niche that you are really, really into. You know, it's. It's a different market, you know, so, for instance, like the people who go to the French Laundry in Napa, very, very small population now. Joseph Keller, I forgot his. Thomas Keller, the own The. The chef and owner, he has a bunch of other, like, way more accessible restaurants in Napa. Yeah. You know that, like, if you're not willing to spend, what, 500 a person on dinner, you can go and spend a hundred dollars a person on dinner. You know, you can go and get a $10 ham and cheese croissant. Still expensive.

Might be 17, but.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I like that way of thinking about it better because it is the work that I do.

Yeah.

With fundraisers.

Yeah.

It's personal development, you know, and it's helping them. Yeah. Step out of kind of. I mean, there's a post coming about this, but this idea of like having learned empathy techniques versus actually being, you know, bringing empathy to the table. So it's like having them step out of the woo skeptic place and touch into something that's actually more powerful for them.

I also think once you start going through the interviews and you're hearing it from what, their mouths, how they're talking about their problems and how they are imagining the best case scenario for their outcome, feel a lot more confident saying, oh, cool, like, here's what they want, here's how I talk about it, and here's how it relates to the greater Margaret brand. Right.

Yeah.

Cool.

Yeah. And I'm assuming there's something in there to kind of help me think about who. Who that ideal client is to start on the interviews.

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, honestly, it's an iterative process. Right. So you're going to come up with kind of a working definition of who your ideal client is. So we kind of come up with, like, I work with, you know, women in sales roles, for instance, who have this. These three problems and who want these three goals. Want to reach these three goals. Right. And you're going to try that and you're going to broadcast it to a bunch of people, you're going to get some signups, you're going to get some people interviewed and you're like, cool, this is exactly it. Or you're going to say, this is nowhere fucking close and we're going to start iterating. You do not have to get it perfect the first time. Most people do not.

The way this program works, if I start on that and I get stuck two weeks from now, I just bring it back to this call in two weeks.

Bring back to the call. You can pop the question into Heartbeats. Just tag me in it so I'm sure to see it.

Heartbeats is just.

Okay.

God, it's just the software.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can actually download the app on your phone or on your desktop.

Okay.

That's always there. And honestly, like, it's a place for you to go and spend time. If you have a question, if you just want to talk to someone, if you, you know, want feedback on any posts or any writing that you're doing, you, I just ask you put those in a Google Doc and share it with me so that I can access it and I'll go through and edit or comment on it or both. Okay.

Is that under threads?

Yeah, if you go into threads and you'll see all the different little chats that we have.

Course guidelines, support, announcement.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Random content, feedback. Got it. Okay, outstanding. Okay, great. Thank you. Lots of place to start here.

Good. Awesome. Anything else? We have a few minutes left. No. Okay. I wanted to share something with you that I did as an experiment last night and I. I'm even surprised at the result. I know a big concern everyone has is sharing personal stuff on LinkedIn. You know, it's like, oh, this isn't Facebook. People are going to get upset. What does it have to do with my business? All the things I literally shared. The dumbest post last night about how I have oily hair.

Yeah.

And advice on how to do it. And let me just see. I have 228 comments and 128 reactions. A bald guy reshared it to his network. I don't know why. I got like, so far, I reviewed it this morning when I was at 205 comments. I did not get a single what the fuck is this doing on. On LinkedIn comment. I got a couple comments that were like, I'm surprised there's no one here who's saying this doesn't belong on LinkedIn. Right.

A.

The reason that is is because I block anyone who I see being negative on other people's content. So LinkedIn doesn't show my stuff to them. Right. So do that with reckless abandon. And to like, when we're personal, when we share like weird, personable stuff, it builds so much trust. It builds this sense of like, I know them, right. I have like, like 17 new girlfriends in there, right? And a bunch of bald guys who like had an opportunity to feel like they were being funny.

You know.

It'S small. And what it does is it pushes these people who may. I may not have been following me before, who saw this content to then see all the rest of my stuff, right? And you'll see I'm on this News calendar right now where every single day there's going to be a salesy post in the morning. So I'm doing these personal ones very intentionally the night before I do something that's more serious. Right.

We're posting twice a day occasionally.

Occasionally. But this is because I've been doing this for a very long time. Do not feel like you need to do that. But the point being, if I can post about my greasy ass hair, you can post about personal stuff too. And it does have an impact on your business. Okay. I know it feels cringe the first time this felt cringe for me, but you know, it really does make. Takes it from this is a place where I market myself to here's where I have a community and that's where it starts. Stops feeling cringe. That's where it stops feeling kind of ick right when you feel like you have this incredible supportive community that wants to show up for you. Okay, any questions on that or Aha's. Okay, so to close, I want to hear your main takeaway. What's a random ass personal thing that you could ask LinkedIn for help with something that doesn't really matter that much to you? And what are you committing to for the next two weeks? Who wants to go first? All right, I'll go first.

Confused buyers never buy. Right. They need to feel, they need to feel seen and understood. They don't necessarily even need to understand what it is that you do.

They need to feel understood.

Random ask personal thing. Oh, okay. Places to work. Like, I am feeling really like missing nostalgia of like a coffee house. Like what, you know, what used to be real coffee houses where you could like hide in a nook and work on some stuff or you know, read a book or whatever. Those places don't exist anymore. I've also tried working out of like a regis office and that's not helping. So I need to find a place where I can like do some day work.

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. My only guidance there would be don't share geographically, just ask for generalities. Yeah, weirdos on the Internet. You don't want them showing up finding you.

Yeah.

And what are you committing to in the next two weeks?

Daily posting.

Awesome.

Keep the habit going.

Yep. Right on. Who would like to go next?

I'm, I'm happy to go. I would say my, my takeaway is it just feels encouraging and less daunting to think about expanding rather than like a complete, you know, throwing away all this work and starting something new. I will commit to, you know, getting started on Discovering your niche and try to bring back some questions or, like, try to do enough work there to have something to bring back. Two weeks from now, even is a very busy season for fundraising, so I will. That's what I think I have time for. And something personal. I'm gonna have to think about that. Nothing is jumping up. Maybe after. After Allison shares, something will spring.

I'm in the same boat. The only thing I could think of. It's kind of location specific. Italian rainbow cookies. You know those, like, the. They're amazing. They're covered in chocolate. It's like green, pink, and yellow, I think. Where to find good ones.

That's a good one. What their favorite, like, pastry cookie is. Yeah. Yeah.

Margaret, you have an answer to my question?

No, I mean, New York, but I'm.

Curious about where you are.

I'm the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania, right across the border of New Jersey. So my takeaway.

Not.

There's a lot going on in my head, so I. I think it's just a feeling of urgency. I don't want to get behind with the interviews, so I just want to.

Yeah.

I don't want to limit myself in any way, so I just want to crush that. So that's, I guess, my commitment and what I took away from this. I do like to confuse buyers. Never buy.

Just.

It's a good reminder as well.

Yeah. Awesome. Cool. All right, everyone, you know where to find me if you have any questions. We have Brave Biz Labs on Friday at 11. Otherwise, I will see you on Monday or the next Friday or the next Wednesday. We have a lot of calls this month. All right. And also, just a quick. Just a quick note.

Brave Biz Labs now, every week, all of them.

And the information for that, events. And actually, that's the one thing I forgot. I know I said in my email that I for. I would ask my team, and of course I forgot. So I will ask. They should be added automatically to your calendar.

Okay.

Have you seen this? They aren't.

Well, they aren't.

I actually didn't realize today is happening until I looked in at events, and I was like, oh, there is one. Okay.

Okay. I'm gonna raise issue with Heartbeat because that shouldn't be happening. It should all be automatically added.

I'm automatically added. But, like, I have no. Like, no email, no notification, nothing that I can actually throw on my calendar that tells me it's happening.

Yeah. Because it says it's on heavy emails, autocal invite, all that stuff. So I'm gonna talk to Heartbeat and see what we can do there. Because it should. You should be getting email reminders and have it be on your calendar. It should be annoying the crap out of you, honestly. So thank you for letting me know. Okay, cool.

Wonder under community, because. And part of it is that the email that you have for me is not my calendar email. That's a Gmail account. That's different. So is there someplace I could change my email address and it might.

Yeah, it should be in your account.

I see community email or login email. So login email, I probably need to leave alone. But community email.

Community email is what's available for everyone else to see. So it's your log.

Great, I'll do that one. Well, it's different from login.

Yeah. And then one note for January, because the first Wednesday of the month is on January 1st. I know a lot of people take that day off. So on in January, our call is going to be on the second Wednesday and the third Wednesday.

Just really quickly, Katie, I wanted to let you know when I go into Heartbeat to find the event, because I don't get calendar invites. I just get, like, email. When I go to events and I click on it, it's always the wrong date. And then I have to go into the email and find the link, but it takes me to the page. Yeah, it's very strange for me.

Can you show me? Do you mind sharing your screen really quick? No problem.

I have to request.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. And. And if everyone else wants to leave, you can. But this is not. But this is really helpful for me to know. So, um.

So when I go to events and then when I clicked on this, you're.

In past events, I think.

Oh, I just clicked events.

Yeah. So upcoming events.

It says I'm an upcoming. These are.

This is.

Okay, got it. Yeah.

But, like, it's not really working right now, but when I go to click on it, it gives me like, this is happening in January, like January 5th. And then I've got to go to my email, find the reminder, click on it, and it takes me to another page.

If you click on the Zoom event here, it doesn't take you anywhere. It just says that it's starting on January 5th.

I don't know if it'll let me, because I'm on Zoom, I might get kicked out, but. Or maybe I'm in it already.

Yeah. So, okay. Because it's the same link across everything. That's so weird.

I had to, like, it said that it was the 6th and like, nobody was there yet. January 6th or something. And nobody was there yet.

You. I think you logged in fairly early, too, right? So.

No, because once I logged in, like 11:59, I usually try to log in.

Or 10, that's still before me.

Okay.

So do you mind doing me a favor? If you log in earlier and it does the same thing, just stay in and see and see if you don't mind, just because that way I'll know if it's being funky or not. Okay. Perfect. Awesome. Okay. All right. Thank you, everyone, and I will see you all very soon.

See ya.

Bye.