Surprising you for my birthday?

Couple different places. And. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist, Money mindset coach. Welcome to my live Happy Tuesday. We're just going to start this over again. There's just so many buttons to press. So I'm going live to the Facebook, to LinkedIn, to YouTube, to Twitter and to Instagram. And I wanted to send an email right at the same moment so that I could invite people from my email list to come and join. And then I started getting some text messages, and I haven't had a chance to look at them yet, so. But hello, welcome. Happy Tuesday, everyone. Coming to you live to talk about a couple things. This evening, I wanted to go over the five things that I did to get clients when I first started my business, some of which worked and some worked and I do not recommend, and some of them did not work at all. So I want to just own all of that and I want to share it, because I want you to see what it looks like to throw spaghetti at the wall when you first start your business and what it feels like to just try everything. And I want to talk about that whole journey, but I also want to talk about my birthday. I have a birthday coming up next week. Hello, welcome. I am turning 35. Hi, Lauren. Welcome. Hello. On Monday the 29th. And I love my birthday. It is one of my favorite days of the year. I love making, like, some weird deal about it. When I lived in San Francisco, my favorite thing was just have, like, a random picnic somewhere and just invite everyone in my life, like, even those who are just so tangentially involved in my life, like members from the gym that I worked at. And it was just so much fun. Unfortunately, I live very far from the whole community now, so I find different ways to. I don't know, to do something. And I have a surprise coming, and I reach out to my list and I asked them to guess a couple things that I might be doing for the surprise. Um, and I got some really fun and creative answers back from people I didn't expect to hear from. So Axel thinks I'm giving a free masterclass, which actually, you know me better than that. I do that all the time. That doesn't qualify for my birthday. Julie Gates thinks I'm hiring my first employee and expanding with a partner. But Julie doesn't know. Oh, my God. All the Laurens are here. Hi. What Julie does not realize is that I already am starting two. Two separate businesses with two separate people. That's already in the works. It's not for my birthday. I'm just super excited about it. One of them might be watching right now. I, you know, I don't know. For outing ourselves. Hi, Whitney. Welcome. I also have. I have. I'm growing my team. It's. It's already happening. We're already. We're already scaling. Like, that is already in the works. There's so much more coming down the pipes about all this stuff in the next coming months. I've just been super busy with a couple other stuff before I can fully devote to the launch of the Stuff. Lauren, Howard, Squee. Just. Just a little hint there, I think, for everyone. All right. The next guest I had was from Jim, who thinks I'm going on a nationwide tour via train. I. I wanted to share. I have actually been on an overnight train. I took the train from Oakland to Oakland, California to Portland, Oregon. It was overnight. I did it there and back. Way more expensive than flying. So beautiful. So, like, the most beautiful landscape you'll ever see. So peaceful. I, like, I have adhd, so, like, when I travel, when I go onto an airplane, it's like I'm traveling with, like three. Three children who have short attention spans. But it's just me, okay? I come with books. I come with, like, different, like, things downloaded on my phone, knitting projects, all the stuff. Because I'm like, oh, my God. I just. I. I have to find stuff to keep myself occupied or else I'm gonna go crazy and, like, you know, get distracted and be annoying. I've never sat so peacefully for hours just watching this beautiful landscape go by. I, like, I. I had some music playing on my phone, but I wasn't paying attention to it. It was just so beautiful. It was so gorgeous. If you have never done that, I highly recommend it anyway. But, Jim, I am not. I'm not doing that for my birthday. No, no, no, no. I would love to do a whole tour. Let's see. Randy, are you going ziplining on the clothesline in the. So. Good guess, Randy. That's a no. I have been ziplining before. It was terrifying. I'm terrified of heights. Heights and I are not friends. Things like that. Like, anything that has me really high up and jumping off of stuff I'm not likely to do unless, like, peer pressured by some, like, group that I'm in. I was in a leadership program and they had everyone do it. Oh, my God. Oh, I did it. I didn't die. I will never go skydiving. I. I have this general rule that if I'm likely to pee my pants from fear I'm not gonna do it, so. And also, Randy, I appreciate you thinking that a clothesline would hold me. I don't think it would. So anyway, nor who knows me fairly well, guess that I'm gonna be finding a creative way to donate, because I've done that in the past. A couple of years ago, I was able to raise several thousand dollars for both the NAACP and Planned Parenthood, and that was an incredible birthday, and I really love that, and I hope to do something like that again, but it is not happening this year. This year I'm doing something completely different that benefits my people. Benefits my people. So specifically, Heather, I'm an honorary Lauren. You are. You are. You are. Well, technically, Lauren Howard listed herself in my. In my email marketing thing as La Ruen. She's like an elf from. From Lord of the Rings. She's La Howard. Who's in. Who's in Telehealth. You know, there was one guest that I got via email. That is correct. But it is not actually the support prize that I have planned for my birthday that you guys are. I'm like, teasing you all with. My dad guessed that I'm going to be making tiramisu with my sister for the very first time in both of our lives. That is true. So we were out to breakfast. My sister's birthday is six days before mine. And, you know, she always likes going to breakfast. I was, like, going to dinner. And my mom is obsessed, obsessed with having Hostess cupcakes, which are gross. Ew. Ew. I'm sorry if you like them, but ew. I just can't even. Like, she has to have them for every birthday. And it's like, not just her birthdays. Like, she forces them on all of our birthdays. And so I was asking. I was like, well, mom, like, maybe Chrissy doesn't like Hostess cupcakes. Like, maybe she wants something else. And I was like, do you know what her actual favorite dessert is? My mom's like, no, because she's always so adamant that it has to be cakes. So, anyway, so I asked my sister, and my favorite. My favorite is tiramisu. That's like one of my favorite desserts of. Of all time. That enchilada, you know, firmly in the Italian dessert sphere. And I asked my sister, what's your favorite dessert? And it was tiramisu. So we're going to be doing that this weekend. So, dad, you got it right. Congratulations. But that doesn't count. What other guesses do we have about. You know what I'M going to be doing as a surprise for my birthday. If you have a guest, please pop them in the chat. Let me see, let me see. Sebastian. Oh, Sebastian. I shall then present myself as Lauren Sebastian. We have so many honorary Laurens, Randy. Mine too. I don't know what you're. What you're referring to as the mind too, but sure, yeah, welcome. Anyway, so. Yes. So that is coming. I'm gonna be teasing that tomorrow and, and get letting you guys in on the secrets. You know, I'm not going to tell you it's a surprise. Like it's just, it's coming, it's coming. All right. But I wanted to dive into the 5ish or so things. I'm sure I'm going to think of other things that I did and want to talk about that too. But the five or so things that I did when I first started my business in. Oh, oh, Randy, you like tiramisu? Yes. Okay, you're. You're in the cool club with me and my sister. But the 5ish things that I did when I first started my business to get clients and let me tell you, some of them worked and some of them didn't work and some of them worked and they were fun and some of them worked and they're fucking miserable. Let me see. Better nature of work. I have no guesses, but I hope it involves the weenie costume. It might, it might. Sharon, you know, I am not going to make any promises. It is, it is. It is a factor that can or may not be involved in the surprise. Depending on you all, if that answers the question a little bit or teases a little bit. But anyway, so I wanted to share these five things because starting a business is a scary thing and we're given a lot of bad advice about how we should do this. And then we hear how what works for other people and we try it ourselves. And it is like the quintessential like cooking spaghetti and just like throwing it at the walls. Let me see. James Patrone. What's up, good people? Welcome. We're just going live here. James, welcome. So anyway, so I wanted to talk about the things that I did and I'm going to tell you honestly, like what it felt like to do them, the results that they got and my recommendation on if you should do it yourself or not. So the number one, the number one thing that I did, it was recommended by my coach training program was to go around and just give free sessions to everyone. This was their advice is just go find people and start conversations with them and then in the middle of that conversation, offer a free 30 minute coaching call. Hi. In the line of Starbucks. Hi, Joe. Welcome. In the line at Starbucks, at the grocery store, in the bathroom, at the restaurant, if you're washing your hands and you can make conversation with other people anywhere, you could talk to people, you just like offer them a free coaching call. Let me tell you. No, no. So first and foremost, I'm a very extroverted person, okay? So I don't have any trouble talking to anyone out there in the world unless they're very standoffish, if they like are not interested in engaging, like, I'm not going to force myself on them. And I also just, you know, I like talking to people who are happy to talk to me back. But anyway, yeah, so I had no problem like actually talking to people and offering this. But let me tell you how this went. So you offer the session. Most of the time they said no, because who the hell are you trying to give them a free coaching session? Like, is there a catch? And yes, there's a catch because like, you know, this is how you're supposed to get clients, right? And but those who did say, so you got rejected a lot, which, I mean, I'm okay with. I've been in sales, but for most people who haven't been in sales, haven't been rejected a lot, it's really hard. It's really hard to go and offer stuff and ask people to do something and have them say no constantly. Which. Side note, if you want to get better at this, I highly recommend you get involved with a political campaign with someone that you really support, because let me tell you, canvassing, going and getting signatures and asking to put signs in people's lawns and doing phone calls and all this stuff and asking other people to volunteer, you're going to hear no all the the time. And it is such a great desensitizer to hearing now. But anyway, so back to the free session. So here's how this went when I just want to say, hello, Cecilia, good afternoon to you and to James. Be happy that others become happy too. Michael, the smile guy, right? Yes, yes, I love him. Anyway, so the people who did say yes, they, we scheduled a time and we hopped on a free call and like the expectation that had been set by the coaching school was that you would coach them and they would be so impressed by your coaching that they would just be like, oh my God, I want to work with you. Yes, give this to me. That's not how it went, it went that way with one person who was like a friend from high school way, way long ago. Hello. Hi Tim. Hi Mohan. And I hope, I hope that's, I don't know if that's your username or your name, but. Hello, welcome. You know, I'm saying hi to you and it happened with one person, but it didn't happen with anyone else. And so you're giving away all these free coaching sessions constantly and you're getting in your head because no one wants what you're selling. No one wants to like become your client after getting this free session and you start wondering if it's your coaching that's bad. Like you start getting so self critical, you start worrying that like you spent all this time and energy and money to like train to become a coach and here you are giving away free sessions and they say that this is supposed to work to get clients and no one's biting. No one's biting. And the one person who is biting is paying very little money because you chickened out and you didn't have a program to enroll him into when he said he wanted to work with you. Different story for a different day. It's just very disheartening and it's not effective. You know, if you want to get coaching clients, you have to do a different way, but you can't give away free sessions. Um, when you give away free sessions, here's what ultimately happens is you train everyone and their mother that your work is for free or for very cheap. And so if you're already, you know, proactively training them that your work is free or for cheap, are they going to want to spend money on it next? Like, no, that's, that's not how logic works. You know, if I, if I just assume like there's a neighbor of my near my parents house who gives away free firewood, right? You just go up. Like, you know, it would be very weird if you went up and you know, she had like a free firewood sign and then she was like, that's going to be $20. No, like it was, it was free 20 minutes ago. What do you mean? You know, which is even a little different because if you need firewood, you need firewood. You're probably going to pony up the money. Like people don't necessarily need coaching. Coaching is an incredible enhancement to life, but they don't need it. Okay? So giving away free sessions is not effective. I don't recommend that. Do not do that. Okay? Do it. If you need to practice coaching I think that's. I understand why they said that, because they wanted us to practice coaching, but they set it up as if that was a business building skill. And that's not. So if you need to practice coaching, go and give away sessions all you want. Like, please go practice the skill, but do not expect to get a client out of it. It's just not going to happen. Okay, Number two is I went to Facebook groups. I like went through the Facebook. This is before I got comfortable on. I just pronounced that word very articulately comfortable on LinkedIn, on Instagram, and on all the other platforms that like, didn't exist even when I started my business, which is wild to me. Anyway, so I, my one platform was really Facebook. And the thing about Facebook is that you don't get a lot of organic reach, right? So when you post on Facebook, the only people who are really seeing what you're posting are people who are already connected with you. Okay. So that's like your friends from high school and college and former colleagues and family members, you know, all people who like, you could coach but like, probably aren't your ideal client. So one of the things that I was trying to figure out is how do I get in front of more people? And so I decided to go after Facebook groups. And so I joined a bunch of different Facebook groups that I thought my ideal clients might be hanging out in and I started commenting on their questions, I started posting, you know, advice and like, you know, I don't know, just kind of my opinion on stuff. I could have done this so much better. I didn't know. I didn't really know anything about how to market my own services back then. I understood the principles of marketing, but not how it applied to my service based business. Thank God I figured that out because, oh my God, it was just so much work to work it out. And I'll be honest, I actually got like a handful of clients this way. My first, yeah, my first wave of clients I got through Facebook groups by posting and like asking questions and so on and so forth. If, if you're comfortable on Facebook and you have a very specific niche, this is an excellent, excellent way to get clients. Okay. I had one client who's an OBM out of Canada and she specializes in a certain like, like organizational platform that a lot of small businesses use for, to manage their online business. And there's a Facebook group about it. And so she joined that group and she was able to pick up all these clients. And it's just, you know, she has this Captive audience that need help with this one thing. It's a brilliant approach. The. The trick here is you have to figure out where your ideal clients are, and you have to work out what you can share in that book in that group and what you can talk about in that group that won't get you kicked out of the group. Because a lot of groups have rules against, like, going and selling and DMing members. And of course, this was years ago. I haven't done this in a really long time because I'm. I don't really hang out on Facebook that much anymore. I'm going live there now, but it's very passive. It's all through Streamyard, you know, so this may have changed. This may have evolved. Some of my clients do still get clients this way. But, yeah, I vote yes on this one. Especially if you're just getting comfortable on social media. You know, stay where you're comfortable for those, you know, first few months, get a few clients under your belt. Understand that you are worth signing up for. Yes. So I recommend that one. So the. The no game. The no game was kind of like giving away free sessions also, but it was more to get me desensitized to hearing no. Literally. I had a coach who challenged me to go in here. No 100 times about asking people to be my client or to give them a free session or whatever. And so on my lunch break, I worked for Cisco Systems in San Francisco, down in Soma, by the ballpark. And like, it's a really hip area. There are a lot of tech companies. So, like, there are a lot of places that during the lunch hour were really, really busy. Like, the pedestrian traffic in front of these places were just hustling, you know. And so on my lunch break, I would, like, go and stand in front of the salad restaurant and offer free sessions to anyone who is walking past just to hear no. And let me. Let me tell you, it was very effective in hearing no. No one. No one wanted a session from the crazy lady on the street that was offering free coaching calls. They all were very suspicious. They were like, this has to be a trick. I'm sure they thought that I was part of a cult or something. And if you were one of those people, I apologize if I creeped you out, but I do not recommend this. I recommend this. If you need to learn how to hear no, that's it. But if you're looking to get clients, this is not the way. This is not the way my people. This is something I never make my clients do by the way I would rather have them go and do something that's like slightly embarrassing in a public place so that they can see that they can look stupid and not die, than go through something like this. Because this, I don't know, it's just like it's a lot of time and it turns your business kind of into a joke. Like, that's. And that's not what I want for my clients. Your business isn't a joke. Your business is your business. Your business will hopefully be providing you with lots and lots of income and like, you'll be able to offer the service, doing work that you love and be able to support yourself with that. That's not funny. Like, I want you to. When I work with clients, I want them to treat their business with the perfect amount of dignity and care so that they can continue to it over and over without feeling foolish. So no, no on the. No games. All right, now, number four, I networked a crap ton, okay? If there was a happy hour, I went to it. If there networking hour, I went to it. If there was a new app. There was this one app when I first started. I don't know if it's still around. I haven't. I think I deleted it from my phone a couple of years ago. But it's called Shaper. It's kind of like, like Tinder meets LinkedIn. So basically you get all these matches, like all these potential matches each day. And like you pay for a membership and you get unlimited or you get like a max of like 20, right? And so you'd basically just like swipe left and right on, like who you wanted to connect with. And so my strategy with this was I would just swipe right. I was like, I was like the. The fuck boy at the bar, just swiping right on everyone. And as soon as we connect, as soon as they like swipe right on me. On me too. And we'd match, I would like do a copy and paste message. I said, hey. And I'd put their name and I'd say, I don't know, I'd offer like a 15 minute coffee chat. And I only did 15 minutes because, like, if they're a weirdo and I don't want to be on the phone with them, I don't want to be stuck on the phone with. I just, I can't do it. So I think I did. I think I did close to 200 of these calls. These 15 minute calls with just random people out of those 2,200 calls and all the Messaging that I did in between, I did get, I did get a client and that client did turn into a corporate contract. My very first corporate contract. So was there an easier way to get a corporate contract? Yes, yes. There are so many easier ways to get corporate contracts and to get clients. I probably wouldn't have gotten this particular client because they were out of New York and I was in San Francisco at the time, but it worked. I do not recommend it now that I understand how to do LinkedIn and I train my clients on that. And there are a bunch of other ways to get corporate clients. There are more time efficient ways for you to use your time and not put yourself in a position where you're talking to people who like, are also trying to sell you on something. Right? So. But networking is incredible. Like if you, if you are at all extroverted or comfortable going and talking to people, you know, we forget because we've been, I mean, the pandemic did this to a lot of us. We forget that like when you're around people and you're able to talk about what you're passionate about, it's almost like you light up from within. Right. And this is going to sound so stupid, but like, I don't know, when I hear someone talking about something that they're passionate about, you know, their work, a hobby, their dog, you know, their spouse, whatever, there's a part of me that kind of falls in love with that person, you know, not, not like, not like romantic, like I'm going to give up my life and do all this stuff and like hope that they're going to be with me. But like, oh my God, you just, you kind of just like fall for them a little bit because they're just so lit up about that one thing. We forget to like put ourselves in positions where we get to light up about stuff, right. And other people get to experience that in us. Networking is amazing for that, right. If you're in the right mood and if you're, you know, good socially, which not everyone is. And I don't wanna, and I don't want to say that's gonna be like the make it or break it for your business. If you're not good in social situations, you can still get clients. Don't, don't, don't misunderstand me there. But if you're comfortable, networking is incredible. That was one of the things that I did. And when the pandemic hit, this is what I did when the pandemic hit. So when the pandemic hit, I Panicked. I was freaking out. I just, I didn't know it was going to happen for my business. I think we were all freaking out. I went to Eventbrite and on Eventbrite you can literally just look up virtual events and I went and found virtual events and I literally just like signed up for one virtual networking event every single day of the week, every single day. And I didn't go to all of them, but I had one on my calendar. So if I was feeling like I wasn't doing enough my business. Hi, Molly. Welcome. Then I was able to just hop into that networking event and, you know, meet some people. I got several clients from it. It did take a lot of time though and. But I also needed that. You know, we were in lockdown and I'm an extrovert so I needed to be around people. But yeah, networking is absolutely incredible. I'm a big promoted proponent of that now. Partnerships. So this is the classic thing that a lot of new business owners do when they are just starting out and they're feeling a little insecure about doing it on their own because they don't feel like they're credible yet. And so they think that they have to partner with someone else. And I did this, I did this with my friend Kelsey. I did this also with personal trainer. I attempted to with a personal trainer in San Francisco. Now my friend Kelsey let go. She's an incredible life coach. We went to coach training together. She's badass, guys. And we decided that we were going to do. We, I think we, we decided we're going to call it Action Incubator. It's going to be like a 12 week program. It's going to be incredible. You know, we started like filming the promo videos and all stuff like oh my God, I have to start posting the pictures because they're so goofy. Because neither one of us was comfortable in front of camera at the time. Sippy sip. Oh, by the way, if you guys haven't heard of like Spin Drift, it's one of my favorite sparkling waters. I want them to sponsor me at some point. But this one is called no Heat. Oh, and it has lime and mint and like I went dry last January or last July. This is like a fake cocktail. It's so good. So good. But anyway. Yes, to be said. But anyway, so we started promoting this and we started like talking about it and filming stuff and it didn't go anywhere. And I, through working with clients, I've seen this time and time again with new business owners because they're like they're so nervous about putting themselves out there by themselves and considering themselves like credible enough to work on their own that they partner up with someone else. And what ultimately happens is they either don't get any signups or they get very confused. People who don't turn into clients for either one of them because they don't have an established brand yet. Right? They don't have an established brand. They're. The person they're partnering with usually doesn't have an established brand. You know, it can also ruin friendships. Thank God Kelsey and I kept our friendship, you know, locked up. Right? We didn't let that. We had a very honest come to. Jesus. Like, I don't think this is going to work out. You know, this. We seem to have like different ideas of who we want to attract and it's all good. Like, let's move on. But it can ruin friendships. It really can. You know, early on in your business also, if you're not being serious legally, my friend David Fryman would be very happy if I went this way. If you're not being serious legally and you're partnering with people and there's like division of monies and things, you probably don't have the right contracts in place to protect both of you if things go south. Okay. Which can create a whole lot of drama on the back end. So I actually advise against partnerships. It didn't not. I don't advise against them overall. Like, I'm at the point in my business now where like the partnerships I am creating with these new business ventures that I'm going on, they are strategic. They are strategic. I know what I bring to the table. I know what they bring to the table. We have a very clear cut action plan and outcomes that we want for the business. But as a beginning strategy to just get your first few clients, it is no go. Do not waste your time. Let me see. Sharon. Spindrift is the best. I'm a grapefruit fiend. Oh, my gosh. I have grapefruit too. I actually just have boxes of Spindrift under this desk behind me. I've got the, I've got the, the strawberry lemonade. I've got the. The blood orange is really good. And I have the grapefruit. I'm a big fan. Big fan of Spindrift. Spindrift. Are you watching? Come on, come on. Sponsor my podcast. Let's do this. Anyway, Randy, lime and mint. Yeah, it's like a mojito, but it's a no. He know anyway, so the 5ish things that I did to get clients when I first started my business. Of the five only, only two I would recommend for new business owners. And actually the things that ultimately took my business to six figures and multiple six figures has helped my clients get six figures and multiple six figures, they aren't on this list. This is not the list that you want to use. If you really want to go for it. Let me see. Obeyed. Welcome. Hello. Hi. Let me see. Give me some mo. Yes, Randy. All right. Any questions on any of this? On. On getting clients on my birthday Surprise. On Spin Drift. It's so refreshing. I should, I really, I should just start making like joke commercials for them. But you know what I need to do is I need to find the cans that have like the opening on this side so that while I'm drinking you can see the, the icon, you know, because right now it's backwards and I'm not left handed like this. I'm gonna spill. Like that was gonna be like an air. An airplane moment where I was gonna like pour it down my shirt. Anyway, this has gotten a little silly. Everyone, thank you all for joining. So I want to shout everyone out. Let me see. Sharon. This is awesome. Katie, you're rocking it. I love you too, Sharon. Yeah, get some Spin Drift. So fun fact, if you order Spindrift online, you can sometimes get a deal. I've been ordering in bulk lately. Highly recommend it. You just have to have some good storage in your house. Want to thank Lauren Howard and Lauren Lefkowitz and Lauren Howard again. And Sebastian. Lauren and Randy. Lauren and Heather, Lauren and James. Lauren and Cecilia. I think by the time Cecilia joined we weren't all being Laurens and obeyed. And I wanted to thank Sharon and Molly and Mohan and Tim and Joe and Sandy. Oh my God, we had so many people tonight. This is so much fun. And Whitney and gwg. I know who you are, but I can't remember the name with that username. But in your picture doesn't really show me your face. It's just a lot of people anyway. Oh, how do you choose partnerships or which is mandatory for partnerships. Yeah. Which is me. Yeah. Okay, so how do you choose partnerships? I mean it really depends on the kind of work that you do. So I mean really, whenever you're picking a partner to, to build a business with, you want to have like complementary skill sets, right? Yeah. Yeah, sorry, I think you're just correcting some words in there, but I understood what you're saying. So. Yeah. So you want to, you Want to find someone who is complementary to your skill set. So for instance, like a carpenter could partner with electrician, you know, to create a construction company. You know, that's absolutely doable because they have complementary skills and they're going to need each other at some point. And like if the electrician is going into a job and the person, the homeowner needs a carpenter, they're able to refer. You know, you could also just have like a great idea with someone and just realize you want to do it with them. But it also helps if you have, you know, complimentary skill sets on like the building and the, you know, putting it out there. It's funny, the people that I'm partnering with, like the skill set that I bring to the table is sales, right? Sales and sales training and, and my access to the coaching world in some cases, you know, so whenever you're picking a partner, you kind of want to understand also what is special about you. Like, why would someone want to partner with you? Obviously, like, this is a massive topic to, to like advise you on not knowing anything about your business, but I hope that helps you also. David. So David Fryman, he's my attorney, he's a former client. He's also one of my now business partners, right? He talks about how, and he, he deals with business divorce all the time. He's a litigation attorney for small businesses and medium businesses. And he talks all the time about how, you know, you don't enter business with people you don't trust, right? You just don't, you don't do it. You know, you enter business with people that you trust. And that's really tricky because when you have this belief that, oh well, I trust them, it'll all work out. Like, no one starts a business with someone they don't trust, right? And yet, like, still it heads towards litigation sometimes, right? Because like the, the, I don't know, split of, of responsibilities is unfair or someone ends up doing more client facing work and you know, whatever someone brings in more business. So you always want to have contracts drawn up that give, that are very specific to what both party has to do and also allow for it to dissolve. Allow for, you know, you to, to part your separate ways if it doesn't work out or if one of you decides that you just don't want to do it anymore. I hope that helps if you're, if you are seriously considering doing a partnership with someone, just shoot me a DM with some more details and I'm happy to like, you know, give you my two Cents. Yeah, but great question. Actually, that would be a really interesting masterclass to do with David. And if anyone's curious about that, let me know. If there's enough interest, then I will absolutely put that together with him. You know, once he's back from traveling, he's away for a couple months or a couple weeks. Anyway, back to my birthday. It is on Monday. Just to remind you guys, no gifts. I'm not saying that to get gifts, but I do have a surprise for you all and I'm going to be teasing it over the next couple days. I'm not telling you when it's coming out and when I'm going to be announcing it, but get excited. It's going to be so great. And, and specifically great for those of you who are wanting to start a business or wanting some extra support with your business. Okay. And if you have any guesses, I'm. I'm still taking guesses. Lauren, what's the surprise? I'm glad you asked, but I'm not going to tell you. Surprise. I personally, I hate surprises. I'm really intuitive and like, I'm not saying that to, like, brag, but like, I just, I know when stuff is happening. And like one of my friends, like, I'm surrounded by people who are just bad liars, which is great. It's amazing. But it also means that no one can get away with anything. So, like, I tend to know surprises before they happen. And I, it stresses me out so much because I end up finding out days and days and days beforehand and then I have to pretend for days that I didn't know about it. And then I have to act surprised. And I'm like, you know, I'm a, I'm an okay actor. I used to act, you know, professionally, but like, you know, in real life settings, it's hard. It's like lying. There was one time where I got a job. I got, I got chosen for a job. There were two locations in the same company that were kind of fighting over me, which is a great experience, but I didn't know who was going to hire me. And the place that was opening, the pre sale office, you know, decided on me. They won me, which sounds so funny. And I walked into the, the other place because I was working at a lower level position at that point. And the manager kind of let it slip. He's like, God damn it, Katie, now I have to cover your shifts. And I was like, what? And he's like, you got the job. And then he's like, shit, you're not supposed to know. Don't tell anyone. And then my friend Jess texts me, and she's like, you got the job. And then she's like, shit, you're not supposed to know. So, like, I had, like, been kind of high with all this excitement all day. And then finally the manager called me, Kate. And I had to, like, lie and say that I was, like, so excited. I was shaking, but I wasn't because that had already happened. Let me see. Oh, my God, Lauren. Did I get Luna a puppy? Oh, you know me so well. No, No, I didn't. I didn't. And that is coming at some point, but I need to know that I am moving to a place, the backyard, when I go to Connecticut before that happens. Okay, but she will be getting. She will be getting a little sister at some point. That's inevitable. We know this is going to happen. She might also be getting a cat. The only problem is she's not. She's not great with cats. Like, she doesn't understand why they don't want to play, like, dogs with her. She gets really loud. She just. Anyway. Anyway. So that might be an option. But I also don't want to traumatize a poor animal. Anyway, but keep the guesses coming. I'm loving this. And, yeah, I will be leaking some more information over the next couple days. It is 9:04, guys. I'm tired. It's been a long day. Thank you, everyone, for joining. I hope you had fun. I know I did. And I will be going live again tomorrow, so stay tuned and let me see the gazelle. Oh, my God. We have more people join. Hello, Amber. Rest and relax, Boston. Oh, my gosh. I don't know who that is. You don't have a picture? And the gazelle. Hello. We're just wrapping it up, everyone. So anyway, have an amazing night. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist, Money mindset, coach, and I will see you all tomorrow. Bye. End here, here. The awkward moment because I'm going live too many times.