Clarity Conference Panel/Recap Discussion

One. How's it going everyone? This is the Clarity conference at a post panel six months after the conference. We're here to talk a little bit and give you some deeper insight on some questions that the audience had during the conference and also questions our clients have recently had in the past six months. So sit tight and we hope you've learned something from this panel for you today.

Awesome, guys. So mainly we're just going to be going over some Q A. I think we've each got our own question. You know what? Some of our clients have had their biggest questions in the last six months. Challenges, frustrations. And just to kind of piggyback off that, Mike, I was going to ask you a big question that I think a lot of people have with branding just to get it kind of opened up. And if anyone wants to go after that, they can. But you know, when you want to focus on, you know, like a rebrand or building your brand towards the future, I guess what's the like foundation or key components of doing that? Because it seems like everybody's business kind of starts with the brand, you know, so if, if we'd start there. That's. That was my question I was thinking for you.

Oh, awesome, man. Yeah, that's a good question. And it's kind of the bigger question that's looming over business owners minds when they're thinking about rebranding or it's even crossing their path. So I would say, you know, why are you deciding to rebrand? Is it something in your business that's a pain point? Do you see future hurdles that you might not have the answers or solutions for? There could be a plethora of answers, but you really have to dig deep and figure out, okay, something isn't working in my business, what is it? Is it website clicks? Is it orders? Is it online orders? Is it in store orders? Is it engagement? Social media retention? What isn't working in my business right now and where can we fill the gaps? Do we need a rebrand? Do we just need a marketing reboot? So it's a lot of internal self awareness and analysis. But usually the bigger issue with rebranding or the biggest reason why people want to rebrand is because they're not really targeting the audience that they are trying to. They're not really reaching a specific goal with specific people. It's too broad. Their services aren't specific enough and their messaging is kind of all over the place. So what rebranding really does is a visual strategy to concise your message to the exact people and places that you need to in order to get the loyalty and community you're trying to grow. So it's kind of a long winded answer, but self diagnose a little bit, figure out what's wrong internally and then certainly hire out for some consulting and professionals to further dig and see where the holes in your business business is, are. And yeah, and then with branding and brand identity, you can certainly bolster your outreach with conciseness, with accuracy, with clean messaging and yeah, relevant communication through design. So.

Wow, that's a, that's a great answer.

Yeah, there you go. So, yeah, I mean, I can talk about that for a while, but yeah, good question, man.

And I guess really the point of this is just to talk about all things businesses. You know, I know each one of us has our own kind of component, but it all kind of serves that. And I think the branding aspect is like, kind of like the foundation. So yeah, I guess, you know, we had a lot of different questions, a lot of different topics to talk about. You know, one of the other big ones was how can I set myself apart in my industry when I have other people that are there doing the same thing? You know, And I think that comes into brand, but there's, there's some other things with that too. Unique selling propositions and stuff. So yeah, guys, should we just round robin some answers or where should we.

Take it from here for the question of how do we set ourselves apart?

Sure, that works for me, Madison or Nate.

Okay, cool. So if I had a client ask me that in a coaching session, I would encourage them to look inwards towards their business and what their database looks like. So it doesn't matter what industry you're in. I mean, digital advertising, branding, photography, content creation, whatever service or product that you offer, people do business with people that they know like and trust. And it's much easier to do business with people that already know you and trust you and like you. So something that I've been focusing on a lot with my clients over the last six months is how do you create a really solid database of people who know like and trust you, do business with you, and refer business to you. So, you know, it doesn't matter if you have, you know, there's a hundred other photographers, Ellen, but the experience and the product that you deliver and creating that relationship is what brings them back every single time, especially when you're able to solve the problem that they have, whether it be I need content for this new product I'm launching or I need you to rebrand my business. As long as you're able to provide a solution to them and they know, like and trust you, it's going to be infinitely easier for you to not only close the sale, but also to continue to get business from them. And then you're not having to do like the cold call or any of that crap that we have to do when we're growing our business. But once you get a really big database and it's healthy, you shouldn't really have to do it. So there are statistics out there that talk about growing a database so that you don't have to cold call anymore. And for everybody in your database, 0.64% of them should be doing business or referring business to you every single year. Or 6.4, sorry.064. So 6.4% of them should be doing business with you. So it's very easy math. If I have X amount of people in my database that I'm talking to regularly, you know, I multiply it by that 6.4%, it should tell you what business they should bring you each year. And then you know where your gaps are. So if that number is lower than what your goal is for the year, you add more people to your database. If you have enough people in your database, but you're not closing those sales, then you're probably not talking to them enough and you're not providing enough value.

So that's my 100% to go off of that too. Social media is a great way to leverage and cultivate that database. The way you show up and present yourself is so crucial to the dream client that it is that you've always wanted to serve. So how do we do that? Well, through the visuals and through the personality, how are we going to portray our personalities for whether that be a personal brand or a commercial brand, every brand has adjectives and personalities. So when using mike services for the actual branding strategy, that's where these personality and traits come to life. And then the visual content will come naturally after you've discovered what it is that you are showing up as and who and for and why. So that is just how it will naturally cultivate the database that Madison was just touching on. And even with how Nate does it as well with his services and reaching brand new audiences from all over the world through Waze on the Internet. I mean, it's all a functioning circle that is going to help you generate trustworthy relationships with people who are what I like to call super fans. And it's just also a fun way to do it too. I mean, you can have. This should be a fun and rewarding experience moving forward in how you operate everything within whatever business it may be.

Yeah, I think that's a really good point that you make because every lead or person that you generate from your content, Ellen, or from the ads that you create, Nate, should go into your database and then is nurtured over time to turn into raving fans. Super fans, like you said.

Exactly 100.

And like, you know, you want to start with having like, you know, obviously like it. I really think it like starts with you, Mike. It starts with the brand and then it goes visuals of that brand, like representing that brand. And then it's like. And it starts to get into, you know, what I do, where it's like generating leads, generating revenue. And then of course, like Madison can come in anywhere in the process. But a lot of times people probably find you Madison after they've started to get some revenue and they prove the business can even like fun function, make some money. Then they start looking back at their SOPs, however, like, that's a great foundation to really start on. I think when it comes to the lead generation, it's like you have the visuals, you have the social media, you have the personality that pulls them in. And then it's really important to have lead capturing mechanisms, lead magnets, guides ways people can send you their email address, ways people can opt in with you. And that's where you start to build that database that you own. Because Mark Zuckerberg can pull Facebook down, can ban us, Twitter can go down under a new owner or some crazy stuff. You never know what's going to happen with these social platforms. And so they can restrict us from seeing a lot of things. But once you capture them as an email, you can send them all your content and you can ensure that they see it 100% even if it's not selling content. Like, if you just want to make sure they see all of your YouTube videos now you have their email, you can actually send out to your email list, hey, go check out this YouTube video. It's going to provide you this value. So I think cultivating that audience, keeping that database fresh and you know, we do a lot of aggressive, like push marketing. Like we're trying to get you booked in, we're trying to get you scheduled, we're trying to get you, you know, to get on a phone call, you know, make a decision that's sales, outbound sales. But when it comes to, you know, things that are going to take longer and nurturing like a long term database, you want to have that educational pieces in there, you want to have some offers in there and you want to just be checking in with them too. So I completely agree. I think nurturing your database, building your network is what's going to be able to set you apart in every different area.

Yeah, that is a really good point. I was actually going to bring that up. One of the systems that my clients have been implementing is something called a 36 to connect, where essentially over the course of 12 months, they need to make sure that they're getting in touch with their database at least 36 times. So that's depending on your industry. That could be phone calls, that could be mailers, emails, social posts. I mean, read the book Seven Levels of Communication and you can think of hundreds of ways to connect with your database and whatnot. But I think the statistic says you only have room in your brain for like the top two. Like we all have our top two brands of chips that we, you know, rattle off right away, our top two vehicle brands, that kind of thing. So if you're trying to stand out above the competition, you have to at least be in that top two.

I like that. That's. I haven't heard that before, but that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah.

And timing too. You never know, like somebody might be looking for your service, inquire on it, and then something happens in their life. They're not ready, but they're still a perfect buyer. And then you drop in right at the right time, you know. And a lot of times people appreciate the follow up too.

I just converted a client that I've been following up for three years.

Wow.

But I, I mean, it turned into a great client, great reoccurring client for me. And that was the one thing that they had to say is you never gave up on us. I mean, you just got to stay in touch with them.

So we get that too. Where, where guys are like, yep, you guys wouldn't leave us alone. So like they're like, they see the power of the system through that. And a lot of, a lot of businesses we work with, they take it personally. They really think that, oh, you know, I, I sent him one text. Guy didn't respond to me. So I guess, you know, like they think that it means that there's no deal there and they give up really easy. And there's some statistics. I haven't been able to find them since the first time I found them, but it was a Harvard law study and it was talking about how if you don't get in contact with them within like five minutes of them coming onto your website, your chance of actually talking to them from that interaction decreases by like some 400%. Like it was insane.

I want to say it was something like 6 minutes and 32 seconds or something like really exact. I read the same study, but yeah.

I couldn't find it again. I don't know if it got pulled back or what's going on, but I'd love to compile more information like that to see because I bet now it's like, like we try to text every lead within a minute and, and get on the phone with them like right after that.

So yeah, absolutely. So I think this brings us into another topic we were discussing which was, and I'd love to hear from you, Mike, about this, I feel like you've got some wheels turning as we're going into a recession. How do we create a recession proof business?

Yeah, that's a huge question. You know what, I think it's an evolving question too because I think, you know, each time a recession hits, which is probably a couple or handful of times in a person's life, it's in a different. We're in a different age, especially of technology and socially. So it's different. And in my experience, especially during even taking it back to Covid in 2020, that's when my business grew a lot actually because, well, everyone was going online and I could have zoom meetings with people and I could still help people with their businesses because they still had other people to help and they had their clients, customers. So I suppose on the branding side of things and how to keep your business recession proof, there's a reason why you should have a brand strategy in place with your business which involves of course, your brand's values and mission and goals and short term and long term goals. And once you have a good bedrock and foundation from the get go, you are, you are prepping for success. You can be adaptable. So your target audience might shift, right? It might shift. Especially going from in person to online. All right, well, where are those people online now? What websites are they visiting? Are they Twitter people? Are they Facebook people? What kind of content are they engaged in? And you should already know this from the audience prior, but their habits change, especially in a recession, and their buying habits change. So that means your message to them needs to change as well. So I think in my experience, having evolving brands to make them evolve and grow even more is really honing in on what your audience needs at the moment, stop focusing so much on your sales, which is kind of counterintuitive, but it helps you and them in the long run. It's like, how can I be there still for these people in this audience? How can we just be there for each other, whether it's a blog post, whether it's tips in an email and like Nate said, keeping that email because if socials go down or something, you know, it's a much more personal way to go about it. So again, finding out what, what your audience needs all the time, especially in a recession, and how you can help them for the better, I think will really uplevel your, your brand in terms of serving who you need to serve and, and the brand loyalty part of it. You're being loyal to them in the most genuine and unique way. So utilize that, utilize your voice, but dig deep and adapt. Don't be afraid to be in the recession with them. Right. That's a strange thing to say, but yeah, you're going, you're going through it too. So be relatable, be personable and find the solutions that, that helps you and them.

So yeah, absolutely. Ellen, do you have anything to add to that?

I mean, he hit so many points that you did bring up the, the point of like socials, like what if the Internet were to go out or recession or whatever. I don't even know.

You have a database with download numbers and addresses.

Open those yellow books, baby.

I mean, all you need is their address and if everything goes out the window, you at least can door knock, just like Nate said.

Then start sending them snail mail carriers or something like that, which that's actually going to start working again. Everything that used to work is going to start becoming the cool new thing and all the new things is going to start to become outdated. I know companies that are going back to door knocking after just being online and having to deal with Legion and all this, really, they're like, let's just get some ground. Yeah.

Wow.

One of the number one ways of generating new business still to this day.

Yeah, but you got to think like, what's the most influential way to communicate with somebody? It's face to face.

Yes, totally.

And I think we lost so much of that with, I mean, what we're doing right now on Zoom. This is great and all, but it doesn't beat actually like seeing somebody in person and whatnot. And that brings up a point I wanted to talk about with building a recession proof business. And I think part of it is also mindset we talked about how do we stand out from our competitors? But when there's a shift in the economic landscape, it just part of it is there's going to be people in our industry, in our respective industries that naturally phase out and they're just not going to be in the business anymore. So I think really important to remember that this is the time to take market share. If you're willing to dig your heels in and door knock and do the things that we haven't done the last three years to build your business, you'll come out ahead where a lot of other people will just fall off to.

The wayside 100%, a lot of new money. And a lot of people get rich out of recessions because of those.

Yes, absolutely. So cool.

Yeah, I think going off the recession question, I think for me it really just does go back to that database. It's like start calling your friends, start calling your family, start making your list of your top 25 people that you'd like to pitch to that and, and figure out what kind of problems they're going to have in this new marketplace and what could you help them with that maybe you couldn't before? Your products like, like Mike said, your target audience might shift, your products might shift, but you just got to hunker down there and, and see where the money's going and just, and just basically follow it. And anything digital right now, there's a lot of money in it. I mean, a lot of jobs. When, you know, when you talk about recession, like, you know, I, I don't know a ton about anything, what that could look like. But as we saw in 2020, like some certain industries blew up, other industries really suffered. But overall online, there's so many opportunities and a lot of things are probably going to get cut when there's a recession. It's going to be only essential stuff. But marketing is essential because businesses, in order to stay open, they're going to have to spend on marketing. And if they're not getting customers in, chances are they probably are going to run into cash flow issues. But a lot of these businesses have money in the bank that they can be investing in their business and that they will be investing in their business, especially during a recession. So if you can get business clients during a recession, if you can keep getting new clients during a recession, I think you're going to be fine.

Absolutely. If you guys haven't read the book already, you three or anybody listening the seven levels of communication can't remember who it's by. It's amazing. Talks about exactly what we're discussing. Basically using the Internet, social media, things like that, along with other ways of communicating with people to build a recession proof business. Essentially how you do that is you have enough people in your database that will buy from you regardless if there's a pandemic or not or a recession or not. I mean, that's the only way to survive through it. So, great book.

I also want to tap into just the last thought on this recession proof and actually something Ellen, you said earlier about superfans, you know, especially during COVID I remember a lot of mom and pop shops were almost filing bankruptcy, but the people in the community that love those places just bought a bunch of gift cards for later because they knew there was hope and there was an actual community behind that establishment. So the importance of actually building that audience and community, that's way more than just customers. They're people that will read every single blog post, open every single email, open every single text. You know, building that for your brand. That is what's going to pull you through a recession. I believe it's the people that are actually the foundation of your brand that you've, you've helped create. So don't lose that community. Don't lose the sight of the loyalty of the people who are helping you pay your bills, but also you're helping them with their quality of life. So focus on the community again, focus on their problems, find solutions and be adaptable.

Relationships over transactions.

Yeah, always.

It's huge retention too. I mean, I see that where any, any business owner I'm able to connect with in a high ticket Legion package and really anything that you're selling, when you can actually connect with them, understand where they're trying to head, where they're trying to take things and have really good communication with them. You know, they're going to continue to do business with you when times get hard because they understand you're going to be putting in the effort, you're going to be putting in the work, you know, for them. And I think businesses just have to make sure that people know what they can do for them and you know, just try to try to, like you guys said, build that loyalty. And because anyone you don't connect with like that, chances are it's going to be hard to retain them. They might not understand what you do, they don't know how to give you referrals because they maybe don't even know exactly what you do.

So such a good point. You have to teach people how to give you business.

Yeah.

You really do. You have to tell them how to send you a referral. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. I've been thinking about that a lot lately. A lot of people, a lot of my clients are like, well, I don't get referrals for my database. I'm like, are you asking for them? Do you ask business? Do they know how to refer to you? That's a really good point. Sorry, that's kind of a left turn. But I'm glad you brought.

Well, referrals is like, probably referrals and word of mouth is huge, especially in a recession. So, like, that's like, number one. I think that's important that we brush up on that.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think a big one for me and kind of my rule of thumb that I use with referrals is I want their information because then there's a 100% chance that I am going to follow up if you just give my business card to them or send their. My phone number to them. You know, we don't do it on purpose, but I don't keep business cards. There's been plenty of people referred to me that I just forget to follow up with. But when I received the referral, there was a 100% chance that they're getting a phone call from me. So instructing people that, yeah, you can absolutely give me their or give them my information, but I also need theirs so that I can serve them in the best way possible. And then the other thing, too, with referrals that I really like to do is reward the behavior. So even if that referral doesn't pan out to business, rewarding the behavior and the act of giving the referral and just, you know, whether that be a handwritten card with a gift card or, you know, their favorite bottle of alcohol, I don't know. Like, all of these things are just. Even if they don't, you don't close that client. Rewarding the behavior of giving the referral is really as well.

That's genius.

Totally agree. I do the same thing with my clients.

And my favorite part, talking about creating super fans is when I receive a referral, I will often send their referral gift. Whether I'm. I like to gift like whiskey or wine, and I'll send it to their workplace because everybody asks where it came from, and then they say, I got it from this person. And it just.

So many gold nuggets.

And everybody likes getting stuck at work. You know what I mean?

That is creative. Madison.

Especially wine.

Sending some fine whiskey to some dealership.

Seriously, they're like, where did that come from?

Very nicely. I see, I see what you're saying there.

Yeah. And I think that's the biggest thing that I've learned over the last six months since the Clarity conference. We are in a shifting economic landscape, and we just have to kind of get like a little scrappy about it and think about maybe the things we haven't had to do the last three years because it was such a great, you know, Covid blew everybody up. Right. So what are things that worked before COVID and we had to do before COVID that we let fall to the wayside because it wasn't necessary that we can now implement into our business today? Like the things, you know, sending it to their work and things like that. People weren't at work the last two years, now they are, they're back at work, you know, things like that.

So. Very true. All good points. All good points.

Cool. Well, is that it, guys?

Nate, I know you have to go, man.

We're.

We're good.

We can keep going if. If we have some other stuff that we want to get into. You know, I think it's just good to have kind of this open discussion touching on different points, you know, so if there's anything specifically you guys kind of want to talk about that's a hot topic at work with your clients. You know, I think for me, a lot of this is already coming up naturally. You know, we've kind of talked a lot about the lead follow up. You know, the 80, 20 principle. 80% of your results come from 20 of what you do. I think that applies so much when it comes to lead follow up. So many people worry about their lead generation, their ads, they're sourcing leads, getting new people in the door. New, new, new. But the people that are going to be the best for you are going to be the people you've already generated that already know who you are. And so that database is huge. But when we kind of look at the ad side of things, it's Q4 right now as we record this. And so Q4 for advertising is always really tough, especially when there's elections. But we're still seeing that ads are profitable across the board. So like Facebook and Instagram ads, crushing low lead cost, high quality leads, Tik Tok ads. We start running a lot of Google Ads, a lot of YouTube ads. And for service based businesses that want to get new business, it's pretty much un, unmatched for the return that you can get. So on My end, things are looking good here. Most clients are just asking, you know, how can they get the biggest return? And the answer is just to really double down on your marketing. It's not to, to spend less is to spend more on marketing. And once you have a good channel for bringing in new clients and the biggest thing is just to make sure that you have the capacity to handle growth if you're going to be investing in marketing like that. So those are the only things that I've been seeing a lot lately, but things still seem really profitable and I think getting established for the new year and, and having a good base is going to be essential and, and then just working through and hoping that the economy doesn't go too crazy and you can all keep doing what you're doing.

Absolutely. I'll just do a little plug since I mean whoever's watching this at any time during the year. But we are in, it's almost 2023. Have you guys done your business planning yet for next year? Have you reflected on your numbers for 2020?

A little bit.

A little bit. Really, really important guys. I mean even in the module that I did for like our individual stuff for this course and you guys listen to it during the actual clarity conference is the economic model. So what basically breaks down this is the profit I want to bring bring in in the new year in 2023, if we're talking about that. And the calculation will give you the number of people you need to talk to every single day. And that's really powerful because if I know I only need to talk to five people a day about my business or you know, for me personally it's 20 people a day. I need to have 22 way conversations about my business to hit my profit goal. That is my one thing that I focus on. I wake up, I get that done and then I have the permission to do everything else. So getting that clarity in your business for the new year or regardless of when you're watching this, it doesn't matter. Do you know what your numbers are? Have you done your business planning? Do you have a business plan? Plan? It's important. So that's my soapbox.

And in your part of the program is is there that you, you said you go over this. Is there like some like business plan? Let's say you, you don't have a business plan. Is there a template you follow for that? What are the biggest things that you that need to be included in business plan?

Absolutely. So I follow something called the 135 method. You might Also hear me talk about it as the roadmap. Your roadmap. So essentially, before you do the roadmap, you need to do your economic model. Because we need to know how many sales every month you need to make for your profit goal. Otherwise your roadmap's not going to make sense. What the roadmap is, is it's one main objective, three priorities to get you to that one objective, and then each priority has three to five smart goals for that. So let me give you an example. If I do my economic model and determined from the economic model that I need to make a total of five sales per month, I would argue that that five sales per month is my one main objective. Because by doing that, by accomplishing that, then I'm going to hit my overall profit goal. Then you ask yourselves, okay, what are the three priorities I need to focus on in order to hit five sales a month? Once you determine those, then you answer the question of what are the 3 to 5 smart goals? And this is like your actual tasks in order to hit those three priorities. So another example would be five sales a month. Maybe one of my three priorities is growing my social media channel.

Okay.

And one thing that I need to focus on is I need to post five times per week. It breaks it down into really small manageable chunks so that I get up every single day. You look at your business plan at least once a week. Don't put it in a drawer like we all do, and you just focus on crossing off the tasks.

That makes sense.

That's the method I follow. And it's very simple. But I mean, that's, that's good, right? We don't want to over complicate things.

Yeah.

Like I always say, simple is more.

Success is simple, not easy. So. And that's the tough part. It's very simple to follow these models, create this beautiful roadmap and this business plan and then like literally lock it in our desk drawer for the rest of the year and never look at it again. Like what? At that point, why would we even create it?

That's me guilty.

Most people are either on the scale of, you know, there's going to be a few of us who look at it all the time, and that's how we make decisions on our business. There's some of us who create it with the best intentions, but never look at it maybe once or twice a year. And then there's some of us who don't create business plans at all. And we gotta be number one man.

Yeah, I, I have that issue of. Of starting and getting super excited and making it look nice and organizing everything. And then if I get a. If even if I get on track for like a week or two, if I miss two or three days, I don't know why, but my. My motivation's like, well, it's all out the window now, and I missed. You know, my consistency is destroyed. And, you know, I'm not just not gonna do this. So. So, yeah, maybe. Maybe all of you can touch on how you guys stay consistent and not get so discouraged when, you know, you're off track for a little bit, because that's when. That's where I. I struggle. I. I can initiate things, but finishing them, it's pretty hard.

Well, I'll give you the most painful thing that I do. And once I started doing this, I don't miss those things anymore. So I have determined my number one most important thing I need to accomplish every single day Is to make 20 contacts. Once we determine that, that's one thing. When I just miss a day, I don't do it. Whatever. I just go on my phone and I go in my calendar and I swipe 90 days ahead and I put an event in my calendar, and I say, you're broke because you didn't make 20 contacts 90 days ago. So then it comes up on my calendar and I'm like, well, that would be why I started doing that for the instruction of my business coach. I didn't do it very often in. Before. I was like, I can't keep up on this. The other thing I would say, Mike, is you have to set goals. You are in direct control of that. The only thing standing between you and accomplishing that goal is taking the action. Because a lot of people like to create goals that are not in their direct control, and then they get discouraged, like you were saying, because you set yourself up for failure.

Yeah, I think that's. I think that's huge for all of us in any industry is having tangible goals. It's great to say, well, I. I mean, monetary could be tangible, like how much you want to make, but if you're not. If there aren't tangible steps to get there, then it's just going to be an idea, right? So, yeah, I suppose I'm in the season of. Of I can dream big all day, but. Okay, well, what. How can I break that down? What do I need to do, like you said, every single day to make sure that I'm at least consistent, that I'm least trying something? I'm least trying to get there and if I need to readjust, I can, so.

Absolutely, absolutely. And those big monetary goals in your example, they have a place, they just have a place in your annual goals, not like your monthly and weekly.

Yeah. And again. So I guess that's where my, my big dreamer mindset does me dirty. It's like, oh, well, it's been two weeks and I don't have $50,000 yet. It's like, well, dude, no. So there's a bit of reality to catch up with half the time. So. But cool, cool tips. Appreciate that. I'm going to use them for sure.

I go through the same thing Mike and I find like there's a couple different things that help me. If there's a project that isn't coming to fruition as fast or as realistically as I'd like to see it. Sometimes it's because I'm not ready for it. Sometimes it's like I need to work my way there. And then life brings it to like, as I just keep working with client A B, they need something that like pushes it more in that direction and then the idea comes a lot more natural. Or you can look at partnering with somebody and having somebody that's, you know, you know, if you're the ideas guy, somebody that's more operational. Like that's what I've had to do to get some things just done because I have the idea, I see the vision. But the day to day work of all of it could be so much. So it's just like bite sized pieces. And for me if I, if, if a day goes by and like all my sales calls, no show and I don't chase them down that hard and I don't make any other prospects like things usually just hit a wall, plateau or, or go down a little bit. But if I just keep working, just at least just hitting, just clearing my calendar, clearing my, my pipeline full of leads every day, making sure everybody's contact with. I'm just going to catch sales just, just by showing up and doing the bear almost, I wouldn't say the bare minimum, but just making sure like that's back to those smart goals. It's like, okay, if your goal is to get five sales per month, then the priority, I think priority would be booking 25, you know, meetings. And then you know, the goal would be to do 100 outreaches because you know, with 100 outreaches I'll get 50 appointments and you know, 30 of them are going to show and then I'm going to get my five Sales from that. So if you just everyday booking appointments, you're going to hit those goals. And. And, you know, it just takes time, you know, like, some things, like, if I would have started, there's some ideas I had that they just came in naturally in a better way. And I had them in my mind, like, we're going to do this. We're going to pull the trigger on this. But it was something where I almost could have jumped the gun on it if I just dove super headfirst into it. And I'm glad that either the market humbled me or I had to pivot because it made it so when it was time, I actually built something that was way, way sicker.

You make a really good point, Nate, too. That's the, like, the power of having the business plan, the roadmap is because you're able to ask yourself, is this idea that I have truly contributing to my one main objective, or is it just shiny object syndrome that we all get and chase after also gives you the power to say no to things that don't contribute to that one main objective either.

Yeah. The one thing, though, if. If I have to bring in another thing, it's like starting another business. Like, somebody comes to me and they're like, hey, can you do ads for this other thing? And literally, it seems like a good idea at the time. Yeah, I do enough ads. You know, I can do ads for horse trailers or whatever. And then all of a sudden, I'm like a horse trailer business guy now. And, like, not a good one either. It's like the jack of all trades master none. So a lot of things are like shiny object syndrome. And if you saw yourself get sales this way for this type of client, you sold them this, and they liked that it worked for you. Just kind of just go over that thing. And I try not to even look at anything else. I get so many opportunities I'm saying no to these days and clients that I choose not to work with because I would spread myself so thin, and then all my ideas, I wouldn't have any capacity to actually execute on any of them.

Yeah. Isn't that, like, the entrepreneur's dilemma, though? Honestly, owning a business is kind of boring because we really do. We have to master the same thing.

Right. It gets really boring.

Absolutely. And most people who have the capacity to be a successful entrepreneur, and I would argue that's all four of us, we have the personalities that get bored easier.

Oh, my gosh, so easy.

We have to, like, almost fight against the natural way our personality is of wanting to chase after the shiny objects and things like that, because that's what our personalities are. But man, the money, the success, the life by design comes in really just focusing at what you're good at and what provides results.

I was just going to make that point. I had just listened to a podcast by the Future, which is a educational platform for creatives on YouTube and it was an episode on self sabotage and they talked a lot about entrepreneur, entrepreneurs and the mindsets of, you know, they could have gone such even greater lengths that they just stuck with their original idea. But you get blindsided because you get bored or you, you feel like you're stifled in your creativity or you can make more money and then you, you ditch and leave everything behind that you've created and start something new. But you really have to figure out if it's the right time to do that. You really have to. Because, you know, success can be just right around the corner, even more so, especially if it's working, you know, So a lot of entrepreneurs where they have faulted is something that has been. Had even more potential than they thought just because they were bored and just because they thought they were being stifled in some way. But in reality it was just them doing, having the work that wasn't really fulfilling clutter their mind like finances, like organizing and hiring and firing and all that stuff. Sometimes that can distract us from the bigger picture. I'll have to send it to you guys. It's a great three part podcast episode about self sabotage and talks all about that mindset on when to change direction if you need to and how to smartly do it. They talk about Elon Musk because he's done so many things. But yeah, great points to bring up.

Yeah, absolutely. Don't fix what ain't broken.

Won'T cut your pipeline off. You know, I had to learn that the hard way. Yeah.

It'S pretty painful.

A lot of good stuff, I think. I think we covered some, some great ground in this. You know, if, if there's anything else you guys want to go over, I'm, I'm here. I'm happy to dive deeper into some of this stuff.

I think I have actually a question for Ellen because she had mentioned it that this question kind of came up, or I guess we were talking about this question before we started was, you know, Ellen, your, your audience has shifted and, or I suppose your, your clients have shifted. How, how. And was that kind of your doing? Was that intentional? And how did you, how did you adapt to that? How's it going now? What's been the process like in the past six months?

Well, I feel like it's always evolving. I mean, my business is drastically different from what it was when I first began it 13 years ago. I've added in things that I want to show up for and serve and the product and services that I provide are different and I'm finding things that I do and don't like. My industry is very creative, so I'm able to be really flexible with who it is that I'm serving, what it is that I want to gravitate toward next. But it is all always content related. I mean, it started with photography, but as the world changes, so did the way that I needed to serve different audiences. Moving forward, I had to adapt to new ways of showing up because I mean, we're moving more and more towards video content. And me five years ago would have said I would never do video. And now that is a service that I am provided because it's needed, it's necessary, it's what is desired and to be able to convey a clear message to your audience and really showcase the face behind the brand. And there's going to be different ways of how I like offering a physical product over digital product because things are starting to online too. So how can I show up in different ways through the products that I offer digitally? It could be information packets, it could be video content that is going to be providing value to that audience. So the foundational skill that I decided to embark on as a young person and continue with was able to shift and morph into what it is today, but still keeping it all within the same realm, so to say. The knowledge is constantly growing and building and that's with any industry as well. So always keeping that in mind and just being open to, to change and opportunity and listening to other people who are pioneers in industries. Maybe there's something that you are wanting to learn that's new, that it's totally different from what it is you did before. There's going to be different ways of selling, showing up, speaking to your audience and marketing yourself. That's really important to be open to change and open to growing and learning and failing. Failing is such a huge, huge important thing to do, especially when going into business. Christo, who is the person who leads the future podcast that Mike had mentioned earlier, he always put the acronym FAIL as the first attempt in learning. So from where I started 13 years ago to where I am today, I failed so many times. But if I didn't have those failures. If I didn't take that action moving forward, I never would been able to fine tune and really simplify my processes and focus on the places on where not only am I an expert in, but I'm able to serve the person who it is that I'm working with to the best of my capability.

Yeah, I think there's, I think overall there's a huge theme of adaptability here in terms of whether it's being a content creator or me with branding and internal business process. As an entrepreneur, we always have to account for that kind of variable change, that adaptivity, because things are going to change, people are going to change, and it's constant. So I think that's why we like it though. I think that's what makes us not bored, is constantly having to be like, all right, how the heck do I solve this problem now? It keeps us stimulated, it keeps us intrigued. But yeah, it kind of puts the fire under our butts a little bit. It helps.

Yeah.

So I think that theme of adaptability is huge in each of our professional industries. So, Yeah, cool.

Definitely. Got to find the problem, find how you can solve it, find how much the problem's worth to them, how much they're losing because of it, how much potential they can make. And they say that it's a lot easier to sell a solution to a problem than a benefit. So somebody just wants to grow, but it's like, it's not that painful for them. It's going to be hard to sell that person. But somebody that needs to grow, that needs something different, it's going to be a lot easier to figure out what, what problem they have and offer them a solution for it. And you have to be willing to just figure out how to do it. Like, we'll sell. There's a lot of things that I've sold before I know how to do it and I just say, hey, you know, I, I sell it knowing we're going to figure out how to do it once somebody pays us the money and we see that it's valuable. And then we, we get, you know, then I go find who can do this for us or what do I need to learn? Or I invest either the time or money into figuring out how to solve that, that problem. But there's been a lot of times where you just have to be like, hey, if this, you guys want to do tick tock ads too? Okay. We've never done TikTok ads for a dentist, but yeah, we're going to just do it, you know, and then that's when you're really forced to figure out, like, does this solution work? Do they want to keep paying for it? Oh, I guess they got, you know, I guess it worked out for them. And all of a sudden then you've got this sideline service. And I think that's how for a lot of good businesses, things just kind of fall into place.

I. That's a great point. That's a great point. I don't know about you guys, but I feel like that also. It's one of my favorite things about being an entrepreneur is I, after being in it for so many years, feel like it does not matter what problem I'm faced with. Business, finance, personal. Like, there's a solution. And our brains have almost been trained over, you know, the years we've been an entrepreneur or business owner, that you hear a problem and you're already thinking of a way to solve it.

Yep.

Yeah.

And like, even personal life, I catch myself doing that all the time. I'm like, I don't even give myself the chance to be upset or pissed off or sad about it. I'm like, okay, here's our options.

I found that I have definitely excelled more in helping others find solutions to their problems through the skills and stuff that I've developed over the course of time. Like, I almost want to consider myself a service provider to some extent because I do offer so many services, and that's just a great way of just showing up in general, like, and be honest with the people that you're working with and embarking on, like, hey, we're trying this something new. If you're interested in wanting to do this with us, then great. So, I mean, never doubt yourself and your capability of pushing and trying new things.

Absolutely. And honestly, people don't care if you're new at it, as long as you have integrity and you do what you say you're gonna do.

Exactly.

That's all that really matters.

Yeah, yeah.

There's no. There's no need to. For smoke and mirrors when it comes to that, because that's what's going to get you in trouble.

Absolutely. I mean, and we are all four great examples of that. We're very young entrepreneurs, and clearly people are willing to take a chance on us despite our age.

So, yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I feel that.

Yeah, yeah. The results are all that matters at the end of the day. If you can bring results and. And you have a good enough process for somebody to do business with you, like, obviously know, like, and trust you, but it really comes down to if they trust you and if they, they believe that you're capable of getting them the return on investment. So like a lot of new business owners come and they're like, what should I be focused on? It's like just focus on getting the return on investment, focus on building that trust and the rest is going to follow off of that. So absolutely.

Great stuff, guys.

Great stuff.

Still, still so much to learn in this and every day is a learning process. I feel like even since the Clarity conference, I've learned so much and so much has become real and so many things have humbled me. I've realized how much I didn't know in certain areas and I think that's what you always have to have that mindset in business. And the business owners we work with who are kind of stuck in their ways, they think it should be this way that it was 20 years ago. I see them really struggle and I see them really struggling with the upcoming possible recession, whatever's going on in the economy. I see them really struggling if they don't want to adapt. Kind of like the theme of this whole panel, it's really adaptability and being open minded to try something new. Realize.

Oh no, it's a great way to sum up our whole conversation. Adaptability.

Yeah, I agree.

Do we want to tell everybody where they can engage and find us if they've forgotten and we wrap it up. Unless there's anything else you guys want.

To talk about, I think this is a good place to first end off. So.

All right, take it away.

All right, well you guys can find me on Instagram at mikemazdesign and you can also find me on my website@just mikemaz.com Mazz for Maz. So hope to see you guys soon and thanks for being here.

You can find me at Ellen's collection co on my website and then Ellen's underscore collection for pretty much all socials. Instagram is where I showed up on the most perfect.

Yeah, you can find me on Instagram. I've been trying to get better at Tick Tock. It's a work in progress at the Madison Marie. Or you can visit my website project badass network.com.

Yeah and you guys can check me out at Shift Social agency on Instagram posting some business related content there. And then also www.the shift social.com we've actually got a a website revamp in motion. Hopefully by the time you see this, I have my sick new website that we've been developing ready to go. It's I'm super hyped about it, so go check that out. And thanks for getting on today. Enjoy the rest of the program.