How Belinda Went From Inconsistent Sales To A Fully Booked & CEO Optional Agency

Welcome to the Business Without Burnout podcast. I'm Kirsten Roldan and I help entrepreneurs make a lot of money peacefully. I'm a New Yorican who went from working in healthcare while cleaning houses and braiding hair on the side to building a business that's generated over $4 million and counting. But there was a time I almost shut my business down because I had a lot of money but no peace. I managed to turn it around and that's why every week I share the 4 strategies that help you grow without burnout: email marketing, team systems, and mindset. So let's dive in. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. Today I am so excited to have my client Belinda on. When Belinda started with me, she was a classic agency owner that was like, I have a very complicated offer that I don't know how to deliver at scale. And I was so excited to help her because it's one of my favorite types of businesses to help. And you have done so amazing in the program, so I'm so excited for you to share your experience. But Belinda, tell people who you are and what you do for those who don't know you.

Thank you so much. That was a lovely intro. So my name is Belinda. My company is called Techpacks Co. We are an agency for product brands and fashion brands, and we help them to design and develop physical products, mostly clothing, but often things like bags and accessories. And yes, that's a very fair description of me, classic agency owner. I definitely felt when I first started MDC that my business was kind of like the ugly duckling in your program, and it was too like unorganized and messy. And I was kind of— I felt like I was trying to shoehorn myself into your methods of doing things and your frameworks. So it kind of definitely took me a while to start implementing things, but once I figured it all out and I've I had really thought through everything and made it all work. It— everything really did work, and, and things are, yeah, very different for me to how they were like a year ago or a year and a half ago before I started.

It's so funny because, you know, people like you will come in feeling messy, feeling like their business doesn't make sense or fit in with what we're talking about, and I'm like, you're always the perfect people. You're always the exact person that should be in the program. So I love that. So can you describe what business was like day to day and what was going on before you joined the program?

Yeah, so day to day business was very up and down in terms of how many clients and how many projects we had going on. We didn't have any kind of retainer offer. We just did one-off projects. So sometimes we'd be totally booked out and just struggling to get everything done. There was way too much volume. And then, you know, a couple of months later, It'd be really quiet again and I'd be like, oh crap, okay, better do some marketing now. So yeah, very, very much up and down. And then the day-to-day was just extremely busy. I did have a small team, 2 VAs, one was part-time. I hadn't sort of fully delegated to them as much as I could be. Um, our sort of offers weren't as well planned as they could be. So I was still doing a lot of the client work. So yeah, the, the day to day, you know, it was just a case of I have this much to do today, but you know, just this teeny tiny amount of time. And so yeah, kind of every day was a bit of a struggle.

Yeah. And I remember when we had gotten in on a call together, you were getting sales calls as well. Like people were interested, but you weren't converting them. They were always going to another competitor or another option. And you were like, I don't know why, because I'm the best. I mean, of course, humbly, you said you're like, I don't get it because we are really good at what we do. And I remember telling you, we need to work on making sure your offer feels essential and competitive in the market to your ideal client. So tell us about— okay, we have where you are now, but tell us where you were when you were working on the offer. Like, what did we end up working on? What changed with your offer? Yeah.

So with the offer specifically, I set up a whole new offer and to kind of like fulfill your framework that you had of making it essential. We basically started to kind of offer more things rather than just the core service that we were doing before, but they were very much related to the core service. They were just kind of other things that our clients would need. Before and after the core service we were already doing. And that kind of made our offer, like you say, essential on more of like a regular basis and for longer periods of time. So we would always have a lot of repeat clients, but it was very much kind of like on-off, on-off sort of random schedules. Everyone was on their own schedule. So now, thankfully, the retainers worked really well and yeah, clients kind of stay with us for much longer periods of time and we help them with other tasks before and after the, the core service that we were previously doing.

What I loved about working with you was because your business model is unique, you know, you have a unique business model where it involves working with product business owners, but there is a measure of it's not all online work because you have to actually get the products and see them, wrap them and things like that. There was like a measure. I remember you had a team member that had like a little warehouse because there was a physical side to your business.

Yeah.

And I remember I loved working on that with you of how do we make you, you know, help the client with all of their needs, but in a repeatable way that's not, you know, messy either. And that was really fun to work with you on. So what did you start offering that made the clients start booking with you? That you felt like was different?

I think one thing I underestimated that people really like is to— when you're in a retainer, you have the opportunity to basically do ongoing consulting and do ongoing calls. So we just have like a standard twice-monthly call with clients who are in the retainer. People really benefit from that. And clients who were previously coming back to us as repeat clients, but for one-off projects, We can now complete the same amount of work in a much quicker timeframe if they're just continuously staying with us on a retainer. Because we don't have that process of, oh, okay, that project was finished. When do you want to start your next project? What's the scope of that next project? When do you want to book it in? Da da da da da. All of that is taken away. We start off by creating a calendar of all of the things they're gonna need and map out what they're gonna need when. And then we can just simply go ahead and execute it without this kind of admin of stopping and starting projects. So for them also, the result is they can get the things they need faster.

Yeah, I love how the retainer actually, it made it easier for you, but it also made it easier for the clients and better for the clients.

Yep.

What changed for you with your team? Like what was going on before and what did you end up changing with your team?

Yes. So the team that I have for this new offer, that's the retainer, the whole process is delegated to that team member. I don't need to also be involved in those projects. So yeah, the team member can just work directly with the client one-on-one and they don't need me to kind of, you know, weigh in or communicate or do meetings or whatever it is. Which is amazing.

That's the dream. I'm listening, I'm like, look, oh my goodness, this is like what I do it all for is to be able to hear a client say that. So tell us by the end of your first year, 'cause you're now in your second year in the program, which is really excited, so exciting. But by the end of your first year, you ended up telling me, and it's so funny 'cause I saw you dropping wins in the channel. Like you're like, I hit my monthly goal again, I hit my monthly client goal again. Like you were dropping wins here and there, But then you told me you ended up hitting your best year in business. So can you tell us about that and how that felt and how that happened?

Yeah, so it felt really overdue, I guess, because I'd been kind of, I feel like before MDC, I was kind of on a bit of a hamster wheel and I was trying to like get to the peak of the mountain, but no matter how fast I went on my hamster wheel, I just couldn't like get to the peak of the mountain. And once I'd implemented the things that I needed to from MDC, I just kind of was like, whoop, got to the top of the mountain. And now I'm kind of just rolling, rolling down. And the amount that I— the business is making and the amount that I get out of this is greater than the effort that I'm putting in. Whereas before, um, it always felt like I was putting in way more effort than I was actually getting out of the business, both like mentally, financially, emotionally. That's been amazing. And yeah, I think really just improving my offers so that they were even better and just more, more buyable for my clients really made a difference to the amount of sales that we were getting in. Um, but also just being on that retainer and having monthly billing basically for clients to be into rather than stopping and starting all these different projects again. That's made a difference to revenue. And yeah, I also now have more free time to work on other things, grow the business, work on new offers because I have some clients that are, you know, just completely taken care of by my team and I don't have to be, you know, doing things for that, you know, day in the day to day.

I love it. I love that you said overdue because That's how so many of my clients feel like. They're like, I've been doing this for so long. I should be making more money by now, or it should be easier. So I love that because, yeah, that's, that's my goal is like, yeah, let's stop. Let's finally figure this out. And I love that you felt like you did. And I also love how you're now in this visionary role. And I remember last time we talked on a call, you know, you were like, yeah, I have all these ideas for the business that I want to execute now.

Mm-hmm.

And it's so funny because oftentimes when someone first joins, they're like, Kirsten, I'm so burned out. This is so like, I need time to just be able to live my life. I just want to breathe. And then it's funny, by the end of it, they're like, now I have time to work again, but on the things that I want to work on. And so I just love that you're in that creative mode again because it really shows that you were able to, yeah, just like set up a business to where you can be. You can have time for life and for the fun parts of your business too.

Yeah. Yeah. Time and just mental energy as well.

Yeah. One of your big concerns when you joined was, how am I possibly gonna find a team that can deliver clients for me? Like, this is a very technical role, right? Very technical from what you were telling me. I remember seeing some of your documents and being like, whoa, she wasn't kidding. This is technical, right? So can you tell us, like, how were you able to hire and train a team in such a niche-specific, high-skill role?

Yes, great question. So it did take me a minute, and I kind of had to kind of adjust the original job post that I started with, but I was following the hiring workflow that you set out. I drafted the blog post, you know, tried to make all of the requirements as clear as possible. I did start out by trying to find somebody in a certain location because some of our business is location-based just in terms of like we have a warehouse for storage, but I didn't find anyone at the rates that I wanted in combination with the location that I wanted. So I didn't want to put up the price for clients so that I could— Yeah, I didn't want to put up the price for clients, so I looked at changing things around a bit in the business that I could have that role be remote. Maybe then that would open up the job description and application to more candidates, which it really did. And as soon as I changed that requirement, I had a lot more applications in, like several, a few really great ones. And from there, I was kind of immediately able to hire someone. So yeah, it was removing the location requirement for me that made the difference. But yeah, that was all like kind of, that process was really simple and easy to do because I was following the MDC hiring workflow that made it easy. And then in terms of training my team, we already kind of have a lot of SOPs to follow, which is helpful. And one thing that has really made a difference in terms of training is following the weekly meeting format that you give us. So we're much more able to give each other feedback more quickly, make improvements more quickly because we talk every week, address everything that's going on, but not just what's going on this week, but we also look ahead and figure out what are we working on next week, what do we need from each other, you know, if there is anything training-wise for the next week. Yeah, that weekly team meeting and like that view to always thinking ahead has really helped us in general, but also in terms of like onboarding team members and things like that.

This is a fun fact. That's actually my favorite framework that I teach is the team meeting framework because it's one of those—

Thanks.

It's one of those unsexy frameworks that does so much.

Yeah.

It can help so much, but it's not the sexy fun one, like elevate your offer or anything.

Yeah.

But Someone can have SOPs like you have, right? And not have a team meeting workflow like we teach and still be stuck in the delivery in the day to day. Just because you have SOPs doesn't mean you don't, you have the ability to execute, you know, the projects at hand. And so I love that you mentioned the team meeting framework and the hiring system. Yes, we're really big on teaching and, you know, sometimes you have to edit and play with the, with the application and the test project, but we're really big on teaching you. How to set up your application to attract high-quality candidates and then really test them pretty hard. Test them hard on their skill set before they even get on a call with you. Right. And so when you, especially for a high skills role, it really helps you narrow down people fast.

Is that—

Yes. —that test project portion. So I love that you mentioned that. But yeah, the team meeting framework is such a helpful system for founders to really like be able to manage projects and lead your team. And all you have to do is once a week be on that call and then that's it. That's all you do when you're like for the client work is be on that call, answer their questions, and then you're done. And so it's one of my favorite ones. I love it. Amazing. Do you have a piece of coaching that I gave you or anyone else gave you that was like your favorite or your biggest aha moment for yourself?

It's not really an aha moment. It's a lot more boring than that. But the coaching I received around elevating my offer was really helpful. Because that was just such like a mind— I was really, I really had to just throw out everything I knew before and sort of relearn everything again about how to set up an offer to get that done. So I really needed a lot of coaching at that time to get that done, which you guys provided. And that was super, super helpful. And then this isn't really strictly a piece of coaching, but another framework that was like an aha moment for me that just blew me away with how much it changed my day-to-day was the calendar lesson that you have. I now just have calls on two, two days of the week only. I've switched up my Calendly so it only shows me as available for two days. My team know that it's just those two days, and now I really can get things done on like Monday, Wednesday, and Friday because those days are free, and I have like large chunks of time to actually like think and yeah, get stuff done. Whereas previously I would do meetings every day of the week and I'd have, you know, a few meetings every single day with 1 or 2 hours in between. And it just felt so hard to get things done when I was always like working in tiny blocks and constantly being interrupted. So yeah, that, that feels so luxurious and my week is just feels more spacious and more comfortable, less stressful. So yeah, that, that really as soon as I had implemented that lesson, I was just like, wow.

Having hours of calendar space, like, people don't understand just giving yourself time to do backend work with no interruptions instead of like, yeah, okay, I have a 2-hour block before 3 calls. Like, we all know the whole time you're thinking about the calls. Like, that's the whole time you're like, when do I get on this call? When do I get on this call? So, right. I, I love that. I love that you experience the peace of that because it's, that is such a game changer is like having dedicated time for front end work, dedicated time for back end work. And everybody's a little different. Like I have some people that are like, you know, honestly, I don't like having calls on 2 days a week. I'd prefer to pace it out over 3 days. And I'm like, cool, fine. Just give yourself hours of time. To do not-get work. However you want to organize that is how you want to organize that. And so it's such a game changer. I love it. It has been so amazing coaching you. And one of my favorite moments with a client was when you— because you're not the only one that said this— but when you were up for re-enrollment, you were like, honestly, Kirsten, like, I got everything I needed. I feel like this is exactly what I came for. I feel good. I feel really good. I feel like I'm good and I'm done. And that is Everything you want to hear from a client like that is like everything you want to hear. Yes, I want you to feel like this year is exactly what you needed for your business, and I'm so happy that we get to keep working with you. But even I always say, even if we don't, this is, this is what I want every client to get to. So I love that you felt that way and, and communicated that because you work so hard. You worked really hard, and like I could tell that you were Like you said, there were some things where you're like, oh, I gotta like completely change my mindset, but you worked on changing your mindset on it. And now look, now look, I'm so proud of you and so happy for you.

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Where can people find you so they can connect with you?

My website is techpacks.co, which is T-E-C-H-P-A-C-K-S.co. And you can hear about what we're up to by joining our newsletter on our website. We send multiple emails a week, just like we learned to do from Kirsten Roldan, all about topics on design and manufacturing. So yeah, I'd love anyone new to join.

Such a cool niche. Such a cool niche. Oh, before I forget, I forgot. I want to ask one more question. I've been asking my clients this. What was your number one objection to joining the program and how would you answer that now?

I think My number one objection to joining the program was, will this work for me? Because I've tried a lot of various things before and they kind of either, maybe they've not been super good or either it's just kind of not been the right solution for the actual problem that I had because I didn't quite know the problem that I had. So now that I've done MDC, I'm a lot more clear on exactly what my problems are because I've learned from you to have a quarterly review process where I really figure out where I want my business to go, what that means in terms of sales and revenue, what that means in terms of team and marketing and resources I need. And I'm a lot more clear now on how to get where I want to go and what I actually need to do that, which kind of educates me on exactly what investments I need to make a lot more. Yeah, if anybody is kind of on the fence, not sure if MDC is for them, I guess it's all a bit meta, but once you join MDC, one of the things you will learn is really how to like diagnose your own issues by figuring out where you want to go with your business, what you want to do, And yeah, it's kind of like a, a positive, a positive feedback loop.

I love that you—

Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does actually. I actually am like, that's a great answer because what I'm hearing is, you know, before in the past I didn't know if it would work for me because things didn't work before because I didn't know how to communicate my problem. But finally I joined a program that taught me how to communicate my problems.

Yes, exactly. Or how to even really understand what my problems were.

Yeah, I love that because it's like, and that's really what we, what we go for is we're, we always tell our clients, we are trying to teach you how to be a CEO, how to run a business from end to end. The roadmap of this is what it means to be a CEO. So I love that it, and this often comes up with our clients, they will tell us it's like it solves the root problem, which is you don't even know how to communicate your problem or you don't even know how to review what was going on. That's why things didn't work in the past. Not because you're an agency owner in a very different niche, but more that you needed to learn how to communicate, oh, I'm having this problem with my delivery. Now I know. Right? And so, and then from there we work with you on, on the nuances. Right? But yeah, I love that answer actually. It's, it makes a lot of sense.

Yeah.

So good.

Yeah. Good.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you so much. I hope people go and connect with you and just thank you for being an amazing client. And I can't wait to keep working with you.

My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me here on the podcast and in the program. And it's been a blast. Thank you. Thank you.