How to become a millionaire - an actual coaching session with a client! (Unbleeped)

Hey, new listener. Thanks so much for checking us out. And there's a good chance you have adhd, so I quickly wanted to ask you to please follow this podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whichever app you're listening to this on. Don't leave it until later because you will forget. Thank you. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. In this bonus episode, you're gonna hear what a coaching session with me is like. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, and, and welcome to the Weeniecast. Squirrel. In the last couple weeks, my podcast producer, Neil Valeo, reached out to me and asked me if I would please do a session with him because he was wanting some direction where he should go in his business. And so we did this 90 minute session. I have full permission from him to share this, but he thought it would be an incredible opportunity for you, our Weeniecast listeners, to see what it's like to be in session with me. Now, each one of my sessions is different, depending on what my client needs. We did some really interesting stuff in this session, so I hope you enjoy this little behind the scenes look as to what it's like to work with me as your coach. Before we get into what you want to talk about, you mentioned in your intake form that you want to do more consulting.

Yeah, I'd like to.

So why isn't there a consulting offer in your offer suite?

My website is just. It's a mess. There is a consulting offer on there, but I think unless you know what you're looking for, it's difficult to find. So I would say probably my. My most popular consulting is the audits. Those are the things that really, you know, I can quite realistically expect to sell at least one audit a month. Honestly, in November and December, they kept me afloat. You know, thank God for them. But it's the clearest one because obviously I talk about it on the podcast, I talk about it on LinkedIn all the time, and it's really easy, you know, open access, but the, the kind of substantial version of that which you were sort of alluding to the other day, that is a little bit less clear.

I think your audits need to be increased in price. Doesn't have to be dramatic. It could be like £350, £400. But I think to like, sort in a more serious podcaster, you know, and also, like, there's not a big difference between 250 and 400. Like, if you're gonna pay for an audit for your podcast, you're gonna pay for an audit for your podcast. And then on the back end of that, you could absolutely have a consulting offer that's like £600amonth and it has two calls. You review like one to two episodes per month and you kind of help them. Like different things you cover in the consultation is like, here are the keywords you wanna be, the topics that you want to do. Like as you're planning out different topics, here are the titles you want to go with, here's how you make it interesting, here's your marketing plan, you know, and you're telling them how to do it. You're not doing any of it yourself. Yeah, the other thing, like, you have too many offers, you're giving people too many choices and like they're going to go with the cheaper option. Except for, like me. How much time does it take for you for each one? Like how many hours would you say you do per month for each package?

Shall use yours as an example.

Mm, yeah.

Anything between 12 and 22 hours, depending on how complex the episodes are. If I'm sourcing audio for like, bit like when we've got like bits of Dolly Parton and stuff like that going down, it's obviously, I've got a number one, I've got to sort of find the license.

Right.

Use and reach out for permission and stuff like that. So yeah, but then you could have a podcast where it's like a two hour edit because it's just simple. The problem. Okay, I'm going to give you a little bit of a peek behind the curtain on this. I think my biggest, my biggest issue with scale is my perfectionism.

Yeah.

I don't know if you've ever listened to your episodes and compared them to other people's episodes. But like, there is a lot of quality control that goes through filler words, breath work, pacing, stuff like that. And, and that does take time and, and it's kind of. It was a decision I took a couple of years ago that, okay, if I, I could go down the road that everyone else does where just stack them high, sell them cheap, get it done and do five episodes in a day like the guys on Fiverr do. But I was like, well, if I'm doing that, then I've got to really drop my pricing. And I want to, I want to get results and the only way of getting results is to make it a decent listener experience. So it, I am kind of like a victim of my own quality in that. Obviously I'm putting the time in, but it does Take the time. So there's a limit to how many. Certainly while I'm a loner at the moment as well. I mean, I do a little bit of outsourcing very, very rarely because I, I can't find anybody that's good enough to do it. But like, if I go away or something. When I went away last year, last September, I had a guy that, that stepped in and edited some of the sort of what I would call less important podcasts. So, yeah, it. Because it is just me, it's kind of like the max I can sort of do managed services for is about three or four or five at a real push.

Yeah, sorry, I'm just, I have a couple thoughts going through my brain. I mean, bottom line, no one will notice besides you. No one will notice besides you. You know, you think your clients are going off and like listening to their podcasts and comparing it against other podcasts. Like, I've never done that. Never. I've never sat down and listened to mine. And like, I don't even know what I'm listening for. I'm listening for. Do I sound like an idiot? I don't. The editing's beyond me. Okay. I know that we're getting results. Okay. So here's where my brain is going, is like, if you're gonna have lower tier option options for people who can't afford to work with you, then, like, those are the people that you kind of use subcontractors for. And one of the perks of being a subcontractor for you is you're going to do some kind of mentorship. You're going to help them get better. Right? Because there's plenty of business out there for everyone. And you're still going to be like the creative, like, high level person in the scenario. However, like, you know, you're not going to be in the weeds saying, okay, well this, you need more breath work here. You're going to say, okay, cool, I want you to go back and listen for like the breath work. I mean, go back and listen for pauses. I want you to go back and listen for what the. The story arc is here and you help them get better. The end client. Like, if they can't afford to work with you, like, they know, they know they're not getting like the master on their things. Right? But ultimately they're not gonna know the difference. Right? Think about how many people, like sign up for an audit so that you can listen to their podcast and they think it's amazing.

I'm with you. It's Overthinking, isn't it? It's like. It is like, that whole you're too close to it. And so my brain has been going towards educating people to understand why it's better, but you're sort of coming from the other direction of, don't worry about it.

No one cares. Honestly, no one cares. So when you get on to LinkedIn and you start educating people about podcasts, you're actually not talking to your ideal clients. What you're doing is you're talking to other podcast people. You're talking to the neils of, like, 10 years ago. Right? Which, I mean, if you want to create a mentorship offer, absolutely, keep doing that. But your ideal clients don't give a fuck because they don't know the difference. They don't. They don't know any of the lingo that you're talking about. Like, they. They can see you getting on your high horse about stuff, but also, like. And think, oh, cool. Like, he obviously knows what he's doing, but it's not. It's never a message that they're like, oh, I have to. I have to sign up with him. You know, it was never those. Those posts that got me thinking I needed to work with you.

Interesting.

You know, this is one of the hardest things for. For business owners to do for themselves, right?

Yes.

Let's figure out what about what I do is interesting to the person who has the money that could be my client, and what is it that I'm gonna say that's gonna get them to decide to buy? So let's hop into, like, a parallel category here and do some work on, like, who your ideal client is, because I had some questions based on what you described. Like, because I know I love being your ideal client, but also, like, what about me and what about other people makes them your ideal client? You know, where are they in their business? How much money are they making? What are their current challenges? What's their greater purpose with it, you know, and what's kept them from starting a podcast on their own? So let's. Let's go through that. Okay, just word vomit at me.

Is this from the frame of why you're an ideal client or just generically sort of talking about whichever.

Wherever your brain chooses to go first, we'll. I'll dive in and dig further. So just. If you want to start with me, go for it. If you want to start with you.

Generically, you know, you. So it's easy to sort of. It's easy for you to relate to why you are, if that makes sense. So I think reasons why I do a client. Well, number one for me it's, it's about the working relationship. That is for me that's fundamental. I've fired clients not long ago because they just, the red flags were just all over the place in terms of clearly not valuing what I bring. If I can't feel like they know what I'm bringing to the table and they've not done the sort of the mind work themselves to be in a position to work with me and trust that, then it's making my life more difficult because then I've got to run every tiny little detail past them except to begin with. You. Absolutely. That's what I used to do with you. First few episodes is your episode, here's your episode, you know, and then when you get to a point where you're like, okay, this, yeah, this guy knows what he's doing. I can trust that he's got my best interest. Then we can relax a bit. But yeah, that's for me, key fundamental having someone that you know is going to trust in what you do. Understand that you're here for, you know that I'm here for you. And ultimately, you know, while I'm sort of, yeah, like you say, I'm in the weeds with equality and like perfectionism and all that. So stuff ultimately my goal is make you fricking money. That's, that's what it comes down to. Or in. Even if it's like, you know, opportunities that might not be monetary, stuff's happening that makes you value the podcast. Number two. Yeah, I think you're in, in exactly the right kind of financial bracket of someone that I can really shift the needle for. It's not like a massive corporate where you're literally just numbers on a spreadsheet. And that's, you know, it's, it's very difficult for people at that level to understand what value I'm bringing to the table.

And so you're talking very abstractly when we're talking about financial bracket and, and all this stuff. Like what is it? What, like what do you perceive is a financial bracket that makes someone ideal for one of your topper tier or top tier offers?

I mean, obviously I don't know what your revenue is and that's business. But like from ascertaining an idea of it, I would usually I'm looking at sub 1 million revenue.

Yep.

You know, someone or a body that is within reach of that, there's an obvious opportunity there to grow with the business so not coming in when they've already grown and, you know, what you bring into. You know, something where, you know. For example, you know, one of my previous clients, she was a travel agent. She pivoted in Covid, so that sort of. That all ended. But, you know, she could attribute what I was doing to her growth until the point where she had to pivot. That, for me, is really important. I have to feel like I'm achieving stuff. That might be the child state in me, but, yeah, that's a big, important factor. I have to be able to enjoy it. So it has to be something that sparks something in me. So, you know, for example, if you're a bank, I'm probably not going to be fired up about working with you.

Yeah. So what kind of topics spark it for you?

It's not really about topics. It's about impact. It's about what. What people bring to the table. That could be a number of things. That could be something that brings change to everyday people. It could be political change. It could be financial change. It could be even spiritual change. You know, I'm open to. I mean, that's, you know, Jenny, that's pretty much what she's doing. It's all about spiritual, really something where I feel that it's going to be a fun process and something I can. And also, I kind of like to be able to learn from the projects I work on as well. That's kind of. You know, I feel like I've learned a lot from you, just working with you week to week. You know, I know a lot more now about. Not just about adhd, but about business in general. So, yeah, that's. That's a fairly big factor that ticks the boxes. Yeah, shut up, Neil.

Tell me more about the goals of the people that you work with.

Goals of the people I work with. I think money is obviously important, but this is like a running theme, is that most of them come to me and then money is not the number one primary goal. Impact is the number one primary goal. They want to feel like they've left something behind, like a legacy of. Of significance. You know, rather than just wasting their time posting social media posts, they want to feel like they've had some impact on the world. I love that. You know, that's a big thing for me, and it's always been the reason I've podcasted myself is not to make money. I mean, I've done several podcast projects in the past where I made nothing from them and didn't try to but, you know, it was, it was his own reward. But yeah, money is obviously going to be a. You know, I'm a business podcast guy. I can't really go around selling. Selling services to people that just want to piss money in the wind. So obviously there, that is a factor. You know, I'm not oblivious to the fact that, you know, you got to sort of park that purpose a little bit and bring, you know, bring real world. Yeah, I think people that are doing it for those reasons. And also, I mean, it's the whole Leah Turner thing again, you know, no knobs, as she says. Same for me, you know, I want to help good people. I know that sounds really wanky, but.

All right, so you actually. There are some things here that I know about me that you've jumped over that I think would be really compelling content wise for you. And selling wise. I actually don't give a fuck about impact. It's great. I love it. Like, honestly, like, it's. But it's not why I do what I do. It's not why I have a podcast. It's like, if you were to ask me why I have a podcast, it wouldn't even like rank in the top 20.

Interesting.

Yeah, like, I love the impact. I love getting feedback from people that it helps. But that's not the why. The why is I want to be lazier about my content.

Right.

I don't want to have to create content every single day. I also know that there's a huge market on, like, listening to podcasts that won't see me on social media. It's a way for me to diversify how I get clients in a, in a way that's way more passive, you know, like two years from now, there's gonna be 150 plus episodes out there that are gonna be doing a shit ton of work to bring clients in. It's starting now. It's great. And it's also just starting for me when I think about, like, why I show up every single week for our podcast recording. And like, what is the thing is, because I know this is like the foundation of my own Great Wall of China, you know, you can't have a Great Wall of China if you haven't laid the foundation, if you haven't set the plan.

Love that.

And that's one of the things that's going to help you sort in and sort out the people who are like, oh, it's like the cool thing to do right now. Like, people who are thinking the way I'm thinking of. Okay, Cool. Like, I want this business to have, like a long term, um, growth. This is one of the things that you can do right now. And then it brings you into, like, you're not. Like, anyone who tells you you're gonna have immediate results is full. You're not. My client, Katie, she started getting sales calls from it six months in. They weren't necessarily her ideal clients. Some of them were absolutely nuts. And her first few clients that she got from the podcast were nine months in. And that's extraordinary. Usually people don't get that until a year in, but what's amazing is that the, the episodes that got those clients in are still out there. They're not going anywhere. They're still being recommended to people. People can still sort through. And the way people consume podcasts is like, whatever the title was of that episode is still drawing people in to listen to it. So, yes, impact's cool. So the revenue I had when I signed up with you was 250,000 a year. Ish. My goal, obviously is to get to seven figures, you know, so that could very easily be your guesstimate of, like, where people are. Because honestly, like, if someone's spending, and we'll talk about your price, your prices in a little bit. If someone's spending, what is it, like 30,000 a year on a podcast? Like, that's a big percentage. If they're only making a hundred thousand a year. Like, they, you want it to be like that, that benchmark at least, because you have to remember, like, they have to be able to afford it for at least a year before they start seeing stuff back. A lot of what you listed is about you. It's not necessarily about them. Right. So, like, what are the things that they're struggling with every single day?

Making money, paying the bills.

Well, okay, so careful there. Like, if, if they're struggling to pay the bills, you don't want people who are struggling to pay the bills. They're not going to be able to be with you consistently.

Right.

So they want to accelerate their track to seven figures instead. Like, like, if you're wanting to draw in more me's, like, last year, this, last year was a shit show. But like, but if, if you're wanting to draw in more people like me, it's. They're wanting to accelerate their path to. From here to seven figures. They don't want to work as hard for it. They want to have something out there that's doing work for them. You know, that's just constant visibility. They want to have access to A.

New audience, round the clock, sales exec, essentially, isn't it?

Exactly. You know, bigger picture. Like eventually they want to write a book. Eventually they want to be like paid to be a keynote speaker for major conferences around the world. Eventually, you know, they want like bigger media opportunities. You know, I think I told you this, like, I want my own TV show in the next 10 years. To a certain degree it could be also like, they're like ready to step into the limelight in a different way that's outside their comfort zone. There's also a degree of like having something to point the freebie chasers to, right? Because up until, up until like you're making 200,000 a year, there's, there's a lot of freebie chasers that like, you kind of have to sort through on your own. And like, you feel bad, like you want to give them something that's useful. It's like, no, go listen to my podcast. I give a ton of value over there.

That wouldn't be a reason to start though, would it?

Not necessarily, but it's a great selling point, right? Like you have to, you get to create more barriers for people to take up your time. Like essentially the struggle that the people who are your ideal clients is they want more time back. They want to set the stage for their greater dream to actually come true and they want to make a fuck ton of money and they're willing to put in the time and work for it right now to set the stage for it, to set themselves up for success down the road. The rest is stuff that like, because here's the thing, like if, if you're saying, oh, you have to be interesting, you have to bring this to the table and that's the table. Like people are going to be like, well, I don't know if I have that. That's not a quality that they can sort themselves in from, you know, or for like from your content. If their business is a change maker, if they have a change making business that's easy for people to see because remember, your, your clients before they work with you, they have no idea what's possible through a podcast, right? They don't know that they can actually like affect change through a podcast, you know, they, they don't, they don't know if this is going to be like a 30 minute, like sales pitch every week. They don't know if it's this, that or the other thing. Like, you know, so like, what does their business do? You kind of want to just keep bringing it back to that the other thing I love that you mentioned it, like, naming that they want to have fun with it. Right. Because what have they usually done up until the point that they start working with you is like, they've kind of like looked at what it takes to start a podcast, realized how much they don't. They don't know that they don't know thought. Okay, cool. Like, do I have to learn this program? Do I have to learn that program? Well, that sounds miserable. You know, like, and I don't even know what I'm trying to accomplish here. They bought a blue yeti. They don't know the difference. Like, they want to back away from, from all the, like, well, I'm not sure. I'm not sure, like, the trial and error because they don't even know like, what success looks like. And then just not even acknowledging, like, what it, what it takes to get like, registered for podcasts and then like, to upload and all that. Like, I didn't even get to that point when I was thinking about starting a podcast on my own. Ah, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah. So a couple things that, like your red flags, like, essentially they're not coachable. Essentially, like they're not open to actually being helped and they're not willing to outsource stuff. So like, maybe a litmus test for this is like, they already have people working in their business that they hand things off to.

Good. Yeah.

Let's go back to your offers. For this person who, like, is building the found. I'm changing the metaphor. Who's building the foundation for their mansion to be built at some point, what's it worth to them?

This is my weak area. It really is.

Okay, so I want to, I want you to get out of your head, so I want you to close your eyes.

Okay.

Okay. Oh, what am I going to say next? Well, you'll have to keep listening to find out. But first. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel.

Squirrel.

One of the biggest challenges I hear from new business owners is how hard it is to figure out what to post on social media and to stick to consistent schedule with it, because it's hard. And so in the month of May, I'm actually launching a challenge to help you build that muscle of posting every single day. Each participant will get their own customizable content plan for, for the month of May, an extensive list of content prompts. So you have an endless bank of ideas of things you can post that work with your content plan. Every Monday through Friday, we will have a 45 minute Zoom call at 9am Eastern where you will create your content and one lucky person per day will be able to volunteer for the coaching hot seat where I will help you fine tune your messaging so that your content can help you attract high paying clients. If you can prove that you posted every single day for the 31 days, you will win a 30 minute one on one coaching call with me. Normally I charge $497 for this, but for the whole challenge, for your content plan, for the content prompts for those 23 daily calls that you're going to get throughout the month. It's only $197. This is my birthday gift to you this year and I'm so excited to hold your feet to the fire and make you post every day about your business and get more clients. If you're down for a challenge and you want to join us, then go to weaningcast.com challenge I can't wait to see you there. So I want to, I want you to get out of your head. So I want you to close your eyes.

Okay?

Okay. Now I want you to imagine there's this like ball of light and it's kind of bouncing around inside your skull and it's activating different parts of your brain and it's probably going to the fear zone of like, oh my God, like, can't ask for that and oh crap, like did I remember to get that from the store? You know what I'm gonna have for lunch. And as you focus on the ball of light, I want you to like consciously focus on slowing it down. As it slows down, I want you to draw it to a standstill right in the center of your brain, right behind where your third eye would be. And I want you to slowly draw it down, down through the back of your face. You can almost feel the warmth in your nasal cavity in the back of your throat as it passes through. It goes down through your neck, past your voice box, past your clavicle. You're going to draw it down into your chest and you're going to plant that ball of light right center in your heart. Now, in the last couple decades, they've discovered that yes, we have neurons in our brains, but we also have neurons in our heart tissue and in our, our digestive tracts. So when you know something in your heart, you actually do know it in your heart. You can do thinking there, you can store knowledge there. And the same with your gut. The only problem is we are not taught to think here. We're not taught to bring our knowing down here. Now, the thing I want you to also be aware of as I ask these questions is that there's no language center in your heart like there is in your brain. So the knowing may not come up in clear cut words and finished sentence. It mean it may come up in like a smell, a memory of a smell or some kind of sensation. And I want you to trust that you know what that means. You are, you are a great translator for whatever that means. So what's possible if someone signs up to work with you and does a kick ass podcast for four years? What's possible for their business?

Fame.

Fame. And what would fame get them?

Opportunities.

What kind of opportunities?

Speaking opportunities, business opportunities, investment opportunities, growth opportunities.

All without what effort? Yeah.

Other than talking into a microphone?

Yeah. What's. What's the potential payout for all that?

Millions. Yeah.

And in non mandatory stuff, like what is the potential outcome for their life?

Well, depending on what they want. Financial freedom, better relationships, new relationships, happiness.

A sensation that when they walk into the room of people who they used to be intimidated by, they see themselves as a. And authority. Like that broadening of their shoulders, like that relaxedness that not worrying about what you're going to say next. Knowing that they belong at certain tables. What's the tipping point for that person to decide to start a podcast with you now?

Belief.

Belief in what?

That it's possible. Self belief.

Yeah.

But also belief in my ability to facilitate that for them.

Is there any other knowledge that your heart wants to give you in this moment?

Yeah, I don't have the self belief myself.

Ah, interesting. Let's dig into that for a moment, shall we?

Okay.

What does your heart know about that?

I've never given myself enough credit for what I can achieve.

Mm.

I think it's all luck.

Mmm.

Damn, you're good at this.

Tell me about the luck.

I still think, even though I've done this convincingly, I still think it's all luck. I still don't think there's any skill involved.

Mm. And what's the impact that's had?

Not selling myself in the right way, I guess. I'm. Yeah, I'm holding back because I don't want to be found out.

Mm. Which explains why you're always trying to prove that you're the expert. So let's ask your heart. Like, okay, so I want you to recenter, right, like really focus in on that ball of light, you know, and if you want to imagine like it's just like kind of pulsing with your heartbeats and it's lighting up every molecule in your heart. It's lighting up every single heart neuron there and activating them so they can really do some deep thinking here. What would be possible if you believed in yourself?

Oh, God. I mean, where do I start? Well, I'd certainly be able to get even better results because I would be. Yeah. I think, number one, making the money that I'm worth, not what I'm telling myself I'm worth.

And what's the difference there?

Huge.

Give it a number.

Oh, my God. It's really pushing me to go big. All right, let's. Let's say it. Millions.

Yeah. So again, tune into your body. What does it feel like when you're making millions from doing what you love and having incredible impact with your clients?

Amazing.

Where do you feel it?

Yeah, throughout my entire body.

What's happening in your body?

Warmth.

What kind of warmth?

Pride.

What does it feel like to have that pride? Pride and peace.

Yeah. It's a feeling of you can do this.

So back to your heart. What do you have to give up to have more access to this feeling?

I need to prove myself.

Yeah. What do you now know?

I can do it.

Do what?

Achieve results for people.

And for who else?

And for me.

Yeah. Any other knowledge that your heart wants to give you right now?

Let go. This has come up a lot for me recently, actually.

Let go of what?

My limiting. My self limiting thoughts and behaviors.

Yeah. What are they doing to you?

Holding me back.

Yeah. How have they. What have. What's the benefit been of having those self limiting behaviors?

Proving to myself that I'm right.

About what?

About. It's that whole staying safe thing, isn't it?

Yeah.

Staying in comfort. And if I don't prove myself wrong, then I'm right.

Yeah. Mm.

Oh, my God. I feel so. I feel like a child. That's.

This is. This is. Yeah. This is not. You're not unique in this.

Yeah.

If you were to put a number to the percentage of rightness that you've held yourself accountable to up till now, what has it been?

Oh, like 90%.

Cool. What's the new percentage of being right?

I'd love it to be zero.

You'd love it to be zero. But what's it gonna be?

So to avoid falling into old patterns, I'm gonna say 20.

20. Okay, great. So I want you to tune into. You have a 20% feedback of being right. What does that feel like in your body?

Relieving.

Where?

Everywhere.

And what does that really feel like?

Bliss.

Yeah. And what does that bliss feel like?

Calming.

Mm. Like What?

Letting myself off the hook, I think is about the closest I can get to it. Unleashed.

Unleashed.

Yeah, it's. It's. Yeah, it's freeing.

And what's possible from this unleashed reposition?

You're now in More opportunities.

Yeah.

For growth.

And what will that growth make possible?

More success.

What does success look like for you?

It's a really, really good question. Financial improvements.

Give it a number.

Let's say a couple of million.

Couple million. Overall or per year?

Overall.

What else goes into this picture of success?

I still want to come back to cheerleading.

What does that mean?

Cheerleading clients and just reveling in their success.

What's important about that?

I hold a lot of my value in people's success that they've had with my help.

Yeah. How does that serve you?

It fills my cup. It makes me feel like I'm actually. It's worth me getting out of bed every day gives me a purpose and a reason to do what I'm doing. Otherwise, I might as well just get a job. If the only success metric is to pay the bills, then I could do that a lot more easily.

Yeah.

But I don't want to do that. I've. I've. I've resisted that because getting success for somebody else is not my idea of success. If someone else takes the credit for it.

Right.

Call it ego. No, but I'm being honest about it.

The. The image I'm getting is that you're the tide. The tide. And the tide doesn't give away, like, credit for covering up the beach. Doesn't give away credit for lifting buoys and boats and docks. Like the tide is the tide is the tide. It just lifts everything when it comes in. It's not egotistical that it's not giving away credit for lifting all these things. It just is.

Yeah.

So as you rise, everything rises with you.

That's the plan. Absolutely. That's always been the plan.

Yeah. A vengeful tide would want to sink everything. A vengeful tide coming rushing in would fuck up docks. It would sink boats versus a purposeful, confident, yet calm tide comes in and just brings everything up. Any final message from your heart before we end this portion of the session?

Oh, my God.

What?

I just got this overwhelming sort of feeling of give myself a break. Like, yeah, I've been really bad at this lately and do it for the right reasons. Don't half ass it. Which I've been. Yeah. Okay. So I've been really lax with meditation and, you know, going for walks and doing all that stuff and I've just. And I've made a point of meditating, but it's been for the wrong reasons. It's been because I feel like I should rather than because I want to. And I've fallen into that trap. Yeah. A couple of years ago, I fell into a trap of just not giving myself space to just be.

Yeah.

Which is why one of your episodes was very triggering recently. Not in a bad way. Pain like me. Seriously? Even Kate's telling you I need to definitely hold space for myself to just be at least a little bit each day, and I'm not doing it, and it's risking burnout.

Okay. So anytime we finish talking to the heart, I always like to do a big, deep breath, but into the chest, so you can kind of feel like your lungs are hugging your heart and just, like, giving it an extra squeeze to give gratitude. So when you're ready, I want you to take that big, deep chest breath. And when you release, I want you to just feel your heart. Just accept the gratitude and then come on back.

Jesus, you. You got more. More out of me than the fricking hypnotherapist did. You've got another revenue stre. Sorry, David, you're fired.

Just a little bit training for a second. So anytime you want. Want to tap into your heart, you can do that on your own. Oftentimes when I have clients who are so stuck in their heads, one of the things that I'll assign to them is like, daily journaling from their heart and from their gut. You know, and it's just like, if you want to go into the gut, it's again, just drawing that ball of light down into your digestive tract, and again just letting it float around. Activate the neurons. When you. When you go to close with your gut, like, just swallow a little bit of spit, send it down as a little. Thank you.

That's disgusting.

I know, but it's. It makes people giggle. And so your heart is where your inner leader lives or your. Your spirit or whatever you want to call it. Your gut is where your intuition lives. Your intuition is sometimes hijacked by your fear gremlins, you know, like that feeling of nervousness in your gut. Like, there's a difference. There's a difference between your intuition and that nervousness. So something you may want to do if, as you're, like, kind of reinvigorating your meditation practice is to do some heart journaling. It just has to be like four or five minutes. Doesn't have to be long.

So what's that? Just Noting down what my heart is telling me.

Tuning into your heart and writing whatever comes up. The funny thing about writing from your heart is often sentences don't make sense. Often the grammar is shit. There's like, the spelling is all over the place, even when you know how to spell the words.

I'll have you know that I was an A student in English.

Well, your heart doesn't. Doesn't know that your heart didn't go to. To spelling class, you know? Yeah. Your heart doesn't have a language center, so like sometimes like the shit that comes up from your heart space just won't make sense. Right. But again, you get to trust yourself that, you know, you're a good translator.

Yeah.

Right. So like you can do journaling from the heart for four minutes and then decipher it for another 10.

Right.

And. And like, kind of journal about what I just told you.

Awesome.

So we have some math to do on a complete other end. Okay, so the number that came up is a couple million. Does that still feel resonant to you.

Where I am right now? Yeah. I mean, you're probably thinking that sounds like a really small number.

No, no, no, no. It's not about me. It's not my life. It's not. It's your life. Your ideal life gets to look however the you want it to look like. Like it's not my ideal life. It's your ideal life and that's all that matters. Right. We have to figure out the math to help you get there.

Okay.

Matter what I think. Deal?

Deal. Okay, we need that in a T shirt. Deal. Question mark. Deal.

Okay. Okay, so a couple million. When do you want to have it by?

My brain has gone into frickin weenie mode.

Yeah. Okay, cool. So this will happen. This will happen. So if you need to like, kind of like anchor back into your heart, you can. And also notice that like, your brain is going to weenie mode. That means that you landed on an answer in your brain and your brain was like, no, that's not realistic. And it took you somewhere else. So where was the first place you.

Landed the year after next?

In a couple years.

Yeah.

Cool. And what will that 2 million mean for you? Like, are you gonna. Are you gonna quit? Are you gonna retire? What's gonna happen? Do I have to find another producer?

No. So. So the plan is long term is to franchise.

Yeah.

So a part of that. And this is kind of what I was talking to Heather about the other day actually, because obviously you know yourself, she's the master with Community groups and things like that. And the 2 million is actually for facilitating that. It's for having a headquarters, if you like, that. I can then operate as a sort of a nerve center for basically turnkey systemizing for other podcasters. So podcasters around the UK can have a set way of doing it where it's operational across the board. So you don't have to go and necessarily invest in different types of software and experiments. You can just literally pick up, go. We're doing the Pod Knows way, obviously keeps their overheads down because they don't have to go and invest in various different. And with AI coming in now as well, there's a lot of crap. So finding the stuff that actually does the job and works in the right way. Yeah, so the 2 million is kind of like a seed fund for making that happen to then take me to the next stage. So it's not really 2 million in the bank for me. It's. It's like, if I can get the 2 million and. And I guess, like, what you're doing with your, you know, your laundry, you know, your business that you're investing in. Same sort of idea. I want to get to that level so that I can start investing it sensibly in growing it to the next stage. Because I can't. I mean, I'm 48 now. Turned 48 last week. And of course, my mortality is now in my brain and retirement. And, you know, I will never retire. I mean, I. My. My mum was just frowning at me the other day at dinner because she was like, are you ever gonna return? I was like, probably not. And I was looking at my dad, bless him, he's 82. And I was looking at, Jesus, I won't be able to do this when I'm your age, though, will I? So I need to figure something out. But I'll always want to be like that. I want to be a chairman or something and just, you know, oversee that. And. Yeah, that's the idea. Sorry, I'm waffling on now. I'm sorry.

No, no, no, no, no. This is all. This is all highliness necessary. Okay, cool. Let's acknowledge your heart is not necessarily a business mind. Right? So your heart is like, cool, 2 million. This is a benchmark for when we're allowed to go and do this thing. But the beauty of it is that your heart knows you want to go and do this thing. So we're gonna say, okay, great, cool, that you think you need $2 million to do this, like, heart. You didn't Go to business school.

Love that. Yeah.

Okay, so I'm kind of seeing your business splitting into two, right? There's you working with people and doing their podcast for them, and then there is the mentorship side. It's. And it's where you're kind of not necessarily betaing, but, I mean, you could. You could just jump into creating a beta of it, of that. That Pod Nose franchise. You know, it could be a membership. You know, it could be a membership. It could be, like, serious mentorship where you're mentoring other podcast producers and really showing them, like, X, Y, and Z. It could be a training that you take people through, a certification of sorts. If the goal is to franchise it, the. The key to it is, like, you want to give away enough that there's value, but not so much that they can just take your system for free and run with it. Right.

This is the problem I've had with it is like, at what point do you then make yourself redundant? Right.

Well, don't worry about that yet. Don't worry about that yet. So, like, you know, a model that you could absolutely go with is, like, eos, Entrepreneurial Operating Systems. Like, one of the things that they do is it's a God. I think it's like a $30,000 certification program. Like, you go through their certification, you learn their process, you kind of become an EOS coach, and then you owe them every month, like, $1,800 for as long as you're coaching within their system and using their stuff. Now, you're not allowed, while you're doing that, to blend it with other modalities. You know, there's. There's licensing at play. You're going to want to talk to someone like David Fryman about the franchising, especially, like, in the United States. You might want to create, like, an LLC in the United States so that, like, if anyone violates the licensing of it, you can go after them here, you know, so that your contracts have some teeth. But, I mean, it's possible. It's a hundred percent possible. And think about it, like, if someone, say, gets three clients that they're producing and creating the content for, and they're charging, I don't know, like, 2,500 each. That's 7,500amonth, and then it's totally worth it to pay you 2,000. Yeah, that's only three podcasts out there. That's only, like, three people that they're supporting using your system. That could easily be someone's side hustle. That could easily be Something that they do in addition to other stuff, or they can carry five. That's a very healthy income. Their net after paying you is still gonna be 13,000amonth.

Right.

So let's rework your offer suite, because I think that's gonna be the key to kind of like, informing your marketing, messaging, redoing your website, all that shit. Okay. So, like, let's stay with the mentoring side for a second, you know, because there are a lot of people who want to do it themselves. You're also just one person. You're gonna max out on hours. All the audits in the world. Like, I would rather you do an audit that's live so other people can listen. Like, you could do one live audit per month, and people get to submit their show.

Been thinking about that.

Listen to it together. And you all take different notes. Yeah. You know, and you kind of show them, like, here's what you're listening for. Here's this, here's that. And then you go through. Cool. So here are my notes based on this. These last 10 minutes. Here's what you need to work on. Here's breath work. Here's this, here's that. I mean, you could have a separate call that's like. Like, idea spinning, you know, helping people come up with ideas for different episodes. You know, you could have, like, a heartbeat chat kind of set up where there's a whole room of, like, sourcing guests. Equipment's not working. Mayday, mayday. This, that. The other thing, you know, you could have a whole bunch of them that's like, oh, like creating content about the podcast. You know, the naming sequence. You could have a monthly Q and A call. So far, I've listed three calls that could be an hour long. So that's three. Three hours out of your life, plus occasionally popping in and answering questions and, like, getting conversation going.

This is really going towards a membership, isn't it? Yeah, it's really the.

Because here's the thing it does. It crosses both off. Like, it. Get it.

Yeah.

It addresses the people who are your future clients where you're going to be their podcast producer. And it helps those people who want to be in membership because they want access to you, because they see what you're doing. They're like, I want to do the same thing because it's specialized, because it's like, there's no other access to the knowing that you have. I would have it be like £200amonth for the. Like, I'm doing it myself, Podcaster. And then I would have Almost an upsell for those who are like, wanting to be the Neil of, of their little world and have that be 3:50 or 400amonth. And maybe they get like a bonus call once a month where they get to ask any question they have.

So. Right, okay, so just so I can get this. So what you're saying is have like the general kind of access area for DIY podcasters.

Yeah.

But then have like an upper level tier for those that want to take it to the next level and become producers themselves. I'm with you. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Because it's the same content, just more. Yeah, exactly.

And it's a different, It's a different approach. Right. Cause they're gonna ask like, how do you schedule this? How, like, how do you do billing, how do you do this, how do you do that? And it kind of gives you like this Runway to play with, how you describe things and how you explain things and figure out kind of what your broader model's going to be. It also gives you an audience to sell that to. It's a funnel.

Right.

It's a whole pipeline of potential clients or franchisees. Because I bet you they're going to struggle. I bet you they're going to sign a few clients, they're going to lose them after a couple months. Like, what am I doing wrong, Neil? And it also gives you that financial, like, influx as you're putting together all the stuff for the franchise. Right. Because it's going to take money. It's going to. You're going to have to build out the content. You're going to have to like, get the contracts in place. You're going to have to establish it in a lot of different ways. But I don't want you stressed out about that yet. That's coming. Right, Right. I want you building the pipeline and the income that can kind of just float you.

Yeah.

Until you get there. Like the membership. That's something that Lauren Lefkowitz and John Spears could hop on. It would help them immensely. You could have a, like a monthly tracking workshop where they're going through and looking at their numbers and seeing like, you know, what's the listener rate, what's this? How many new subscribers do you have?

It's incredible how many people can't get their head around that as well.

Exactly. And, and you could have it in like a Google form that they fill out every month and you could hire a VA who just compiles it all into. I mean, you could even have AI do this. They take like all the data that's been given by lauren@laurenlefkowitz.com and they could put it into a graph that shows how it's increased and how it's decreased and all that jazz. So that's like the mentorship side. And then my intuition is telling me you're not doing it for them. If you're not handling everything anymore. You can either consult with them for a thousand pounds a month. If they really want to do it themselves, they can do it themselves with expert guidance. You can absolutely, like, put together some trainings on how to use zencastr, some trainings on, here's how you're gonna edit, here's how to make simple edits, here's how to go and get licensing. This is gonna be foundational stuff that you can use for the franchise later, you know, but, like, it's for the people who, like, wanna start their own podcast. They don't necessarily want to do podcasting for other people. And you'd give them feedback. Like, you'd really like. You'd be their coach throughout running their podcast. Here's what, like, there's a lot of breathiness in this episode. Here's how I want you to edit it going forward. Right now, this lagged on it needed something kind of, like, to spark it in between. Here's how I would have edited it differently.

So you said that would be a thousand a month. How much? So what would that be? Like a call call a month, or.

I would say a couple calls a month. And you could design it with them, you know, like, if they need you more on the planning side, like, they're pretty confident in the editing and they might just want the occasional feedback. Like, but they have a hard time coming with ideas or figuring out how to get guests. Like, you can absolutely come in there. You could also have it be like, they want your feedback before they put the final edit up, you know, and you could go through the feedback with them, you know, and even if they want to, like, hop into the editor while you're on the. On the call with them, you could say, okay, cool, go here. And you see this little part here? Okay, cool. I want you to, like, splice that. We're going to add something different in here.

I love it.

And then I want you just doing what you do with me, but you need to charge a lot more money. And I hate saying that because I know you're going to raise my rates and that's fine. But, like, you need to be charging that. You do. You need to Be charging more for that. £2,000amonth is not Neil, But Neil, like, you do so much.

Well, you've got till April, and then I've got to send you an awkward email in March.

Anyway, it sucks. It really does. But you need to raise your rates, right? Yeah.

In all transparency, as you know, I always am too transparent sometimes. Yeah. I don't remember I said I sent you an email about six months ago or something. And I said, no, it was. I was actually last April. That's right. Because I put my prices up for all my other clients and I said to you, you only started in October, right? Technically, November. So I said to you, locking you in for the same day. So basically, the package you're on doesn't really exist anymore.

Yeah, exactly.

I know, but what I've been thinking is, because where I am now in terms of what I can do versus what I was. My idea was I was going to, in April, raise the prices across the board for. But basically the idea was not charge them more, just to charge them more, because I hate that. What I want to do is say, look, what we were doing is kind of the old way of doing it. There's these new opportunities now. So, for example, like the. Like I've been doing with you, you know, with pay tracking and stuff like that.

Yeah.

So my idea was to sort of say, right, this is. This is now what we're going to be doing. So for the higher price package, this is basically what we're doing for you. We're getting you more opportunities for, you know, press coverage, we're getting you more paid traffic to the apps, we're getting you more Facebook coverage and all that sort of stuff. Because what I didn't want to do, and it was really interesting listening back to your episode, actually, we were talking about grandfathering people in and things like that. In my head, it was like, yeah, I love the idea of that. But what I don't want to do is say, right, so we're going to just put your prices up. We're going to grandfather that in. And then, you know, the client going, yeah, but what am I getting for that?

You know?

Oh, okay, right.

You live in the world, right?

I live in the world. Mm, I hope so.

Buy food.

Yeah.

You buy clothing.

Yes.

You pay for vet bills for your dog whose butthole keeps falling out. Love that I get to say that. I mean, I know it's uncomfortable for everyone, but, like, I'm not uncomfortable because. Because it's happening for you and not me. And I get to have those prices gone down in the last couple years?

No, they haven't.

Okay, what have they done instead?

They've gone up.

Cool. Okay, so this goes back to you feeling like you need to prove it all the time. Yeah, sure. I, I love that as a business person, as someone who wants to give like an excellent service to your clients, you want to incorporate some more things. Absolutely. And also I just want to check in on that voice in your head that tells you you're not allowed to erase your rates without justifying it. If you wanted to say, give someone a discount for paying in full for the year from your new rates, great. You get a nice little influx of cash right now. But also think about like, you know, come July, are you going to regret that? How, how do you deal with money when it comes in? Yeah, no, yeah, and just doing like some quick little math. Also, if you're charging £300amonth for the group mentorship for people who want to do their, their own podcast, like you get 25 people, that's 7, 500amonth. It's not bad.

No, that's really good.

Yeah, it's, it's not like an insane amount. You're going to be able to answer everyone's questions. Like they're going to get so much value out of that. Which means you may not need to carry that many one on one clients. You know, you really get to guard your time and also focus on building the stuff for the franchise. Like your time is a limited resource right now. Like, you don't necessarily have to do more. Like if there's stuff that you can add, like maybe like put more towards advertising, like that'll help your clients, but also like, you don't have to just raise it by that amount. Right, right.

Yeah, yeah. See this is, this is the problem. This is where I have a real problem. We're back to that whole me not believing that I'm getting the results that I am kind of thing. And that's where that, yeah, that's where that falls down. Yeah, you're right. You're right.

See that movie in the 80s? So it's Bette Midler, Danny DeVito, bunch of other people. Danny DeVito actually pays a hitman to kill his wife because he hates her, but she has all the money, so he doesn't want to divorce her because he'll lose all the money and he's having like an affair. It's like, it's like. So anyway, so he hires a hitman, but she gets kidnapped by people who he screwed over in his business, and so he wants her gone. And they're trying to ransom her back because they want money to, like, make up for what they lost. He's, like, pretending like he doesn't have the money and all this stuff. And, you know, he's trying to pretend to the police that he's so upset, but then he doesn't really want her back because it solves so many problems for her, for him. And so he basically ends up negotiating with them about what the ransom should be. And it, like, keeps going down. Keeps going down. Meanwhile, like, she becomes friends with them while she's being held hostage, and they start explaining to her what he's doing, and she just starts, like. Like, crying be like, I have to buy Kmart. Like, you know, because, like, they keep discounting her.

Yeah.

Like, you're not. Like, you're not in business to give people a deal. You're not Kmart of podcasting. And when you think of, like, five other podcast producers who do what you do but aren't as good, well, that's easy. How much do they charge?

Yeah, yeah, you're right. You're right. God, you're right.

So, like, if. If it makes your stomach squirm to charge three and a half grand, like. Yeah, so you don't have to go there overnight. And I'm not just saying that because I'm like, I don't want to pay that, but, like, genuinely. No, no, no. Because here's what happens when you. Your body's not on board with, like, oh, my God, Like, I can't charge that. Like, you're never gonna get a yes for that because you're gonna start self sabotaging in your sales call before you even get there. Okay, so can we back it down to, like, 2,500? You know, 2,700. Like, where. Where in there? Like, would you feel, like, really, really confident?

Here's an interesting thing. So I. I don't even know if this is something that's a first for you, this problem. Okay, So I really resonate with Americans. 90 of my client base is Americans. This is one of the reasons I haven't gone limited as a company here, because if I go limited, I have to charge vat, Right? And if I charge vat, that technically prices me out of the client base that I've got that are Americans that are already paying a bit more than the UK price, because obviously there's the. So you're. Obviously, you're paying $300 more based on the currency conversion. I guess, you know, that's the thing is like if I put my prices up too much, suddenly we're like for you it's. Was it like eighteen hundred dollars, isn't it? I think yeah, that's fifteen hundred pounds. So that's obviously I'm, I'm again full transparency. I just about break even. Just about. And that's being super efficient with it as well.

Yeah.

But like I have another client who's, who's just starting with me and for her it was like really the breaking point was like $50, you know, more and it would have been a no go.

Yeah.

So how would you approach that? Knowing that your clients are going to be priced up anyway.

But remember like how you've been marketing to people has been. I'm proving that I'm good at what I do. I know my shit, I know what I'm doing. Not here's where you are, here's where you want to go, here's what you're struggling with. You hearken back sometimes and you said it in this session. I've, I've noticed it like lightly throughout your content to like you're struggling to pay the bills. You know, like that energy is sometimes in your post, sometimes overtly and sometimes subtly interesting. Because here's the thing, like if someone is struggling to pay the bills and they want to go with the person who's going to be 100% accurate 100% of the time because they have no margin for mistakes. So your messaging has to shift out of that and into here's what this looks like and here's what you want and here's what you're struggling with and blah blah, blah and really focus it on your, on your people now because you want to do some mentorship, like there's the, the separate marketing messaging around I know my shit. And if you're struggling with X, Y and Z because you're doing it on your own, you should join my membership. But a lot of that is going to correct now. It will take some months to shift, you know, your audience and like get starting, start getting attention in a different way. But like you have to make that energetic shift in your mind around I'm not just going for the brokeny books. I'm not just going for the people who are worried about paying the bills.

Yeah.

You know another question I might ask is like are you allowed to own an LLC in the United States and run it from where you are?

That's a good question. I need to look into that.

And that's something you might want to ask David Fryman about. But, you know, if you're really wanting to work with the American market, I think there might be like five states in the US where you have to pay taxes on services rendered. I know Massachusetts, California, and Pennsylvania. I've never had to pay taxes like sales taxes on anything. Like I have to pay actual income taxes, but that's different.

Yeah, that is. That's definitely a good idea. Yeah.

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