How to Producize and Scale Your Expertise

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Welcome to Success Secrets Exposed. Tune in live every Tuesday at 7 PM Eastern Time or Wednesday mornings in Australia on W4CY Radio and Talk4TV. Every week, Sally leads intimate conversations with today's thought leaders, changemakers, disruptors, and masters of their industries. Her genius to bring you tips, strategies, and insightful perspectives on various topics shaping our lives and business growth, revealing the human element of success and challenge.

You all, and welcome to another episode of Success Secrets Exposed. Today we're going to be talking about how to productize and scale your expertise With Wayne. And today we're going to be joined by the founder of Resident Pixel Co., a Squarespace-focused agency helping businesses transform their online presence. With a background in world-renowned digital agencies, Wayne has worked with a design— as a designer, an art director, a creative director, and assistant to some of the world's best brands and award-winning strategic design and customer experiences. Now he leverages his expertise to help clients productize their services and scale their business effectively and efficiently. And we have had an amazing conversation, so we're going to deep dive and continue our conversation so you can get a bit of an idea as to all the possibilities that you have utilizing Squarespace and Wayne's expertise. So please help me welcome Wayne to the show. Yay! Hey Wayne, how are you?

I need an applause track. Hi, how are you? I'm very well, thank you.

Awesome. So you've had an incredibly interesting background as it relates to being in the inner circle of some significant marketing agencies, something which we had shared in common that, you know, in the inside, inside a marketing agency and what goes on.

Right.

Can you share with us what your journey was from within that agency agency field to now sort of being out on your own, doing your thing, and really excelling in this inner genius of your space?

Sure. Yeah, you know, when you first get started as a young designer, it's sort of like whatever projects the company has, you just jump all in and have a great time. You're just happy to have the work, get the exposure, learn from the more senior people in the room. And I certainly had plenty of opportunity to do that in You know, we're talking 25+ years ago, so it was like banner ads, early website design, and, you know, convincing people that they even need to be on the internet and on the web specifically. Like, that was a thing. And, you know, as, as the web matured and digital marketing kind of matured with it, we found ourselves doing lots of different types of media. I don't know if you remember, like Flash or anything like that. It was like tons of interactive media and lots of experimental media and different types of ad units, both, um, online and like sort of interstitial and ad spaces, and also offline with digital display and different types of, of signage, digital signage and ad units. So yeah, it's run the gamut and When you bounce from one agency to another, sometimes, you know, you just, you hit some kind of ceiling or you title up or you need to grow or expand in some way. You know, those are great opportunities to expand your network and expand your exposure to different media types. I found myself running the entire email marketing for huge brands like The Home Depot and Verizon over the years. So all of a sudden you're like, well, I guess I'm in charge of email now. And then— So, So what happens after, you know, you've been doing it for some 20, 30 years, you know, and I suppose everyone that's listening is fairly seasoned and understands this, but in general, you know, you're like, okay, do I really want to drive an hour across town and not own my priorities anymore? And what would it look like to leverage my network to put my own shop together? So in doing that, it was, yeah, take all comers, man. Can I even make a living? Like, and my wife and I had talked about a number like, in one year. If we do X, then we'll stick with it. If we don't, we gotta bail and get your CV together and get back out there. Uh, and after 6 months, it really became obvious that, you know, this, this was viable. And, uh, that was 5 years ago. Yes. And even that business has changed because now it's totally— like you mentioned, now I've totally niched into helping a very specific type of market with a very specific platform, and that has been even better for the business. It's super rewarding.

Yeah, I think that's part of the great conversation we had earlier is when we retrospectively look back at the journey and see the evolutions of us as humans and as the business evolves, particularly when you dive in and you're able to utilize your network and you're able to have those real paramount conversations of, you know, what's getting in with clients or potential clients, what's getting in your way, and really understanding them to be able to really serve someone in that really specialized way. Even though we've got lots of specializations, but being able to bring it all together in that manner is just, um, is, is very unique. So you've walked, uh, walked your walk and talked your talk, um, as it relates, because you've been able to scale a business, which is obviously what you're now, um, focusing, uh, on with other clients. Right. What inspired you as you've dived into the business and you could see for yourself that this could be a thing? Because that was one of my epiphany moments, or this could be a thing. So you've worked through that it could be a thing and it is supporting your family. What inspired you to focus on the productization side of things for businesses? What did you see in the marketplace that was missing?

Well, there is a challenge that you hit when you go out on your own, whether it is a freelancer or you start a small agency and you're building whatever you're building, if it's a service-based business, there is some either seasonality or some cycle that has this feast-famine life cycle to it, right? Where you land a couple of projects, you're super busy, you're not doing any marketing, and when they wrap up, you're like, oh no, I don't have any projects. Or there's seasonality, and when those 2 hit at the same time, boy, that's a disaster. A couple of tough months. And while you get better at managing your money through it all, there really isn't a way of leveling that out consistently enough. Even big shops, you know, an agency with 70 or 200 employees will still lay people off when they lose a client or lay people off if they have a slow season or, you know, that, that's just the name of the game as they say it. And I kind of refused to accept that. Mm-hmm. Like, what can I do? To create consistency in the business from a revenue standpoint and open up what's possible for my clients by not limiting them. Because another thing a service business often does is play a lot of defense. Like, you, you wind up protecting your time even though that's what you're selling. So you're like, well, you get this many hours, or you get this block, or you can have this many revisions, or you can have this much, uh, resource of some kind. And those just aren't very positive and empowering conversations to have. And having been at agencies for a long time, there's a lot of upset people that feel like they've been run over for years.

Mm-hmm.

And I just thought that I don't want to build that business. I don't want to add people in order to have more time to sell, and I don't want to create a business where the bulk of my conversations are not positive. So that's why I productized the offer. And, you know, productize is a cool word, but what I did was create a membership or a subscription-based business where you get a whole bunch of unlimited stuff. Um, now I don't want to count the— track the time. I don't want to count them, the minutes. I don't want to count how many things we're delivering. I just want those businesses to be successful. So to do that, I had to do a lot of thought exercises.

Absolutely. And one of the things, I've just scrolled down my page to something I highlighted when, when we were, when I was looking at my notes, which was a product-based business is, is a hard life. Thinking the— thinking around the fulfilling work and your expertise don't scale well. So that thinking and the expertise is scaling. And then of course you've picked a platform that you, that you love. But when you get the— I'm going to call it the model right and you get the consistency right, then you do— it does build your energy and it not only builds and fulfills your own energy, but it actually builds momentum to the business. So you've used the word, one of my favorite words, which I'm just going to also come back to, which is consistency. So I've got a bit giddy, my legs went like that under the desk because you just said consistency. Yes. Awesome. So let's, I'd love to talk to you around the consistency piece as it relates to the way in which you deliver your model to clients.

Yep.

How you're— I know there's a Wayne nag in there as it relates to consistency, as it relates to getting your clients to do certain things consistently. So talk us through some of the consistency, I suppose, highlights and challenges and problems that people have that you help to resolve. as well.

Yeah, it runs the gamut. Different businesses need different levels of support. And additionally, it's easy for us to project our perception of value onto them and their thought. And everyone else's perception of value is very different, not just monetarily, but from a time or, you know, human exchange standpoint. So to To have a business that runs service by subscription, whatever it is, you have to be really good at operations. You have to think hard about the process because if you're not good at systemizing your processes, all you're doing is creating more problems for yourself down the road. And my process is super mature, super smooth. It runs. And, and I did that by simplifying, not by adding complexity, not by adding automation. Simplify, keep it dumb, put everybody through the same process. Because there's a misconception that because every— I'm selling the same outcome for the same price to everyone, that everything we create looks the same. And that's not true because you alluded to this a moment ago. By, by narrowing what we work on and what we deliver to be very specialized, or niche I guess is a great word for it, That is a way, but that doesn't itself sell. What we got to get really good at is narrowing whom we serve and how we serve them. So when you get the who really dialed in, then creating content is not difficult. You're always talking to the same person and you're always moving them same through the same process. And that's really where the magic happens when it comes to being able to scale, because you're always telling the same story to someone that's pretty similar, even though their perception of the value that we're providing is very different.

I

have clients who are like, message or email weekly, like, I need these things. I've added a team member or add this blog post, simple stuff that they could do. But they're really busy. They value that they don't have to.

Yes.

Well, others won't call me for 6 months and be like, I know I owe you stuff.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh, I'm getting so much value. Because when you have a growing business, you don't really care that much about what you're paying for a very simple subscription. So it varies dramatically.

Now I'm going to hone in on something else there because there was something else that you flagged in there, which was also another little giddy moment for me, was around automation and the misconception. And I must admit, I have been guilty of this, where I got super excited about all of the different automations that I could do, which was super exciting because automations going to save the world and save the day, and then it became a nightmare from, you know, where. And it was just became— automation was meant to simplify, but it actually made massive complexity. And I heard you talk about, you know, automation, but it's almost that dash of the right automation to keep it all very, very simple, isn't it? Is that another area that you see people really tend to think that they need to they need all of this fandangled automation. And it really does just need to be, as you said, a simple process. We overcomplicate the process. And I think— sorry, I'm just going to add there, from my own experience, we overcomplicate the process when we don't actually understand the process in its simplest form. So there was a little chicken and egg scenario.

Yeah, yeah. Not to throw too much shade, but, you know, humans have this way of adding complexity just to make them feel smart sometimes. I, I don't know, like, I don't mean to be crude, but the idea is simple. Simplifying things makes everything in the, in the workflow easier, um, and, and faster sometimes. Um, and here's an example, like, if you have a manufacturing line, and at the end of the day, we are all in manufacturing And you have an issue, like fires are popping up or something, or things are breaking on the line, or a machine keeps breaking, and there's pressure. There's always pressure to move faster.

Mm-hmm.

But in order to move faster, you have to stop all these things from going wrong on the line. And to do that, you have to slow down the process. When you slow things down, nothing breaks. And you actually get more done. It's, it's this crazy simple thing that I think humans struggle to get their head around because there's this rat race. There's this like, oh my gosh, we gotta push, we gotta push, we gotta get it all done. Um, so, and, and your comment about automation is apt because I, I like to say automation's a lot of work. Like, not only is it a lot of work to set it up, There's breakage in there that can be unexpected. And just because you automate something, it doesn't mean you have less to do. It just means you've moved where you're doing a thing. It could be, it could be sooner in the process or later in the process, but you haven't removed anything when you add automation the bulk of the time.

Yeah, so very true. I'm sort of sitting there going, because it was all of that. It was so— I remember we did, you just, it was because we thought we needed it and we thought we were being clever. And it got, you know, bigger than Ben-Hur. And then it was all working great. And then, you know, there was one little breakage and it was like, in all of those lines, where is that? Where do I find that in that maze? Yeah. So, yeah, too, too, too, too overcomplicated. Um, yes, just, it's funny. And as you said, humans do, um, do love to overcomplicate things, uh, for this, for the sake of it, and often, and we don't I think we don't realize at the time how much we do that until we look at something retrospectively when it's—

Right. They're all baby steps. You don't realize how many, you know, steps have gone, you know, in tangent or, you know, astray. And you suddenly realize there's a delta between you and your intent and getting back the further you go is a lot more work.

Yeah. Yes, yes, exactly. So I'm just going to switch up the gears a little bit and talk about It will come back to the productizing and the scaling side of things that you're so apt for. And I know when we spoke earlier, you talked about your credibility playbook. Can you tell us a little bit about what that is and what impact that's had for your clients and for the business as well?

Yeah, it's been incredibly impactful and not in ways that I saw going in, which is absolutely nothing good, but it's kind of crazy. Well, You know, we, we talked about my long history in marketing agencies and advertising, uh, designer and leader. But when I started the business, you know, I had already made, I don't know, a few hundred websites for, you know, over the years. And what is that, like 10 years? Not even that many. But then all of a sudden, now I run the company and I need to hire, and now you're on the hook for process for SOPs that maybe, you know, when I was a creative director, I just asked somebody else to write that damn thing. But not me. I have to write that thing because I'm the— I'm the guy now. Right. Yeah, I'm it. So, um, so in formalizing the process, uh, and that has also simplified dramatically over the last few years, but when I decided to do what we call productize and really niche into web design by subscription, I needed a process. I needed to be able to name it. I needed to brand it. And because at the end of the day, even if we're just selling time, our process, or whether— however we want to frame our expertise, is ultimately what we're selling. So the better I can be at articulating that, the better my odds are in communicating its value. So What I did was name it the Credibility Playbook, and it's 3 phases. Each phase is 3 steps. This is 9-grid. It's a dead simple thing. But as is when you're selling expertise, especially when you're trying to explain productization of a service to someone, you know, this is a classic and, or has been a classic done-for-you service, right? Mm-hmm. But once you formalize that process, then you can scale your expertise by offering done-with-you consultation. Now, once the process is detailed enough, someone else can go through it. They just need to check in with me to be art directed or ask questions or be shown the way from a technical standpoint, because, you know, these are websites, they're technical things. And I decided, well, let's just do 6 calls once a week for an extremely valuable price. And then it's way cheaper than hiring my company to do, do the website for you. So that worked really well. I got a lot of calls from that this— and that's new this year, that done with you. Consultation product. A lot of new business calls. People are smashing the book a discovery call button on my website, which is great. Nobody's bought it. And what they did was say, oh my gosh, this is so complicated, can your company just do it? So it has, it has driven sales. It's just not the thing I intended to sell. So what I realized is I, I just wasn't talking to the right person. So I've, I've switched my content strategy and the positioning of it to try and talk to someone else. And hopefully— that's fairly new— hopefully that, that starts to work. So it's been a smashing success, it's just not selling what I thought it was gonna sell.

Yeah, and isn't that often, um, often the way? And I remember a phrase from one of my mentors that was, don't market in your— don't mark Market in the market, not in your own mind.

Yeah, yeah. Market feedback validation is incredibly valuable. And look, we're stitching our parachute on the way down here. Like, nobody's bought this thing before. There's no case studies out there.

Yeah, but isn't it— but it's the best way to get it out there, to actually get the really incredible insightful feedback, as you've said, on the way down or on the way up and across is, you know, it gives you the ability to continue to evolve and adapt. And really deliver something that the clients and things are actually looking for.

Yeah, you got to get it out. Done is, done is so much better than mostly thought through.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right. Perfection is the enemy of done.

Yes, yes. So can I ask you, when it comes to the business where it is now, when clients are coming to you, what is their most common problem? I'm just keen for the audience to— because obviously we're talking about your expertise, but when someone comes to you and they're they're the right ideal client, etc. What are that— what's the problem that they've— or the problems they've got in their backpack that they're about to dump on your desk? And yeah, yeah, talk, talk.

It's a great question. Of the last 100 clients we've onboarded, they all have one of 3 issues. One, they DIY'd it and they are stuck because turns out you can't just buy a template and bang on it for an afternoon and think you're publishing an amazing website. Some people, rare people, I can do that. Not everybody can do that. And they don't realize until they're stuck and frustrated. And they're usually the most frantic folks.

Yeah.

The second one is they've hired somebody and they're on WordPress the bulk of the time. And they've lost contact with whomever created the website, they have no idea how to update it. They, even if they know how to log in, they get in there and they're like, I, all I did was break stuff. I don't know what I'm touching here. It's, it's, it's a mess. And, and, and, and WordPress is great for the right business. It's, it's an, it's incredible. But for, you know, small business owner who needs this stuff to be done so they can go run their business, it's problematic. And that's the second one. And the third one, what's the third one? I forgot the third one. Um, oh, they, they have like a startup and they want to move fast and they've hired web designers before and they want to get out of paying a large lump sum project fee. Yeah, right. They're like, oh, I'm going to save a ton of money. And that's not necessarily true. Like a few hundred bucks really starts to add up when you pay that every single month for years on end.

Yeah.

But yeah, they, they do get out of writing a big check for $8,000, $10,000, $15,000 a small, you know, small business website. And, and that's, that's a luxury that they get when they subscribe. But, you know, there's, there's a lot of work to be done. It doesn't reduce that. And those folks usually want to move really fast. They're, they're entrepreneurs, they've got other brands or something. Um, and I handle them really, really well because everybody goes through the same process. This is not— I don't care how you come in. We're gonna save you. We're gonna rescue you. You're fine. But yeah, those are the 3 problems that they face in general. 3 types.

Yeah. Perfect. Um, sorry, I just lost my train of thought. I got, got a bit excited there again. I got too excited over 2 things and I've just got to catch them again now.

Sorry. Sorry about that.

My legs, they wriggled away. Um, I absolutely see that, that fast pace, um, and the frantic person. I reckon I've been all of, in all of my journey, I think you've described me, uh, at different times. through that. I've had the, you know, somebody built the WordPress and I've been, you know, not locked out, but, you know, they've gone, I've gone, I've lost a computer. And it's like, and as you say, when you log into the backend of something that you're not familiar with, it's like, oh my God, do I click where, where is even this? And so that level of complexity and fear and oh my God, and then, you know, the stress levels rise. And that's why I sort of envisioned that backpack. Someone brings their backpack and just sort of goes, it's over to you and you unpack it and sort it all out and get them back on their way. So one of the things when we were speaking was I had a misconception and did not know all of the possibilities that was actually available with Squarespace as it related to a business, because my perspective was that Squarespace was just a website. Um, and I found out from, through speaking to you, um, that it's a whole lot more than that. So can you talk us through some of the possibilities and give us some client examples of the way in which they are actually using, um, what you've been building for them as, as a business unit?

Sure. Yeah. And I don't even talk about these much, like when I'm onboarding or in a new business flow, it's because they are coming for a website and, and it's, you know, one of the biggest, if not the biggest DIY platform in the world. It's, it's huge. Hey, a lot of them end up like, oh, I put this course over here and I'm sick of paying for it because they haven't sold any. Or they're, um, you know, though they are stuck with their email marketing. And, you know, I just— when it organically comes up in conversation however many months later, I'm like, well, we could just turn that on on your website. There's No additional fee for adding a course to your website. It's built in. Same thing with invoicing. And their CRM does have a small fee. It's like $100 to $200 a year. It's, it's much cheaper than a lot of platforms. And it's, you know, so it's a CRM, it's a, it's a course platform, it's invoicing. There's a lot of features in there that people don't take advantage of. They don't know about. And I don't usually come right out of the gate with those. I'd rather hold on to those, let those save their bacon at some point in the future if need be, because people don't like changing applications. It's a huge lift. I'm not going to ask somebody to change CRMs just because— no, that— I don't want to sell something to someone that they don't want.

Yeah.

I'm not here to convince anybody of anything. You know, if they need the thing, the thing is there. We can, we can do that. And this, the Squarespace pricing is very competitive, right? And, and that really helps, uh, when it comes to adding on services like their Acuity scheduler. Acuity scheduling they own, and that's integrated. And the email marketing is a small fee upgrade, but the rest of this stuff is just baked in for no additional cost. And, you know, I'd rather it be a sense of relief for these brands, right, than be a thing like, oh, I want to take on more services because they're stickier with me. That's not the point of my business at all.

Yeah. And that was what I loved around the conversation we had was that, you know, oh yes, and it does do this, and yes, that's already part of it. And that, you know, that sense of relief that you provide with your clients, which to me is that ultimate care that you display and take your clients through. But like so many people, and this is the thing that I see with the legacy leavers that I work with, is they've got all these— I'm going to call them the Frankenstein, the stuck Frankenstein things that they've got this that bolts onto that, that this bolts onto that. And the ability to have something sort of almost in one place. And the conversation we had around Squarespace with all of the possibilities, that's why I used the term possibility, the possibilities completely blew my mind and makes it a very exciting platform. But also with your expertise makes it an incredibly exciting and incredibly leverageable platform for people as they're, as they're moving through with the experience and as they're growing in their business and scaling all of those things that they can scale, you know, go from their expertise to then the online courses and programs and all that sort of stuff as well.

Yeah.

So that's awesome. Um, let's talk, uh, mindset and, uh, business development now. You mentioned, uh, we've talked about the thinking and the fulling work, fulfilling work, and working and finding your expertise that enables you to actually scale well. And you've also talked, um, about the growth. Um, so let's sort of bring it back to the growth elements. When clients have been with you for a while and they're now looking to grow, um, with what you do with their business, with your business. What are the things that they are generally now considering from a growth phase? Is that a little bit different to what they come in when they start? When they're going into that growth phase, Moze, what's, what's the— yeah, they're having with you?

Well, the layup there would probably be SEO, uh, and there is plenty of that baked in, uh, on-site SEO is included in their subscription, but they really end up getting into a, a challenge. Like any coach or consultant, small business owner, you can only be in one place at one time, and you can only have— there's only so many hours in a week. You can only have so many clients either on location or online. Scaling yourself is really hard. So what they end up getting into is digital products. So we mentioned courses on, on the Squarespace platform and Some people will put them on Teachable or Kajabi and all these different amazing platforms, but the, the process of creating content, right, and selling that content is, is a much bigger lift than I think a lot of people realize going in. And I've seen it, I've seen it now many, many times where it's half done or they don't know who they're positioning it for. So writing marketing copy and really hitting value prop on that is really difficult. Or actually creating and finishing the thing is like extraordinarily hard because it takes a lot of time, right? Not a lot of people realize that to make a 10-minute video is at least an hour-long recording, and it is probably 4 hours of editing. Like, now there are AI tools that help with that a little bit now, but, um, it is a massive labor load if you're going to create a 30-hour course because you've got all these ideas and you've got all this content you want to get out and all these things you teach, and they're all amazing. But how do you fragment those into bite-sized products? How do you market those products and who do you market them to? And then making a 30-hour course It takes a year. And now I don't come out and tell them that because they don't need to go into cardiac arrest. They just need— like, I try to nurture them through it. Like, well, how big does it need to be? Like, think about— so I start talking about things like tiny offers.

Yes.

Like, like, what could you sell for $47? Or like, what can you sell for $107? Like not a $50,000 course, not a $5,000 course, because if you don't have an audience, you're not selling any $5,000 courses. I'm sorry, that's, that's— you might sell a few in your family, but you're not going to sell a bunch of those at scale unless you have a massive mountain of content out there, because selling a product is also a full-time job, and you were doing this to scale yourself. Oops.

Yeah. And it's got the time stuck in there as well. And this is where I love with the conversation, especially as we've talked about the productization. And this is a bit of a shift where, you know, everyone wants to go and do it, you know, let me go and create the big ticket course thing. But some of the opportunities lie in, you know, I use the phrase, the money's in the boring. You know, there's something that we've got bored with and, uh, and that we serve our clients with. And we're, you know, dying to get on to the next exciting big thing that we're building. Yeah. But oftentimes that thing that's boring to us is something that's very repetitive and can be beautifully productized and turned into a product offering that can, can then generate, you know, your recurring income. And that's that mindset shift of moving from a service provider to what I think you called it, a business, developing your business, whereas I would call it being a business development manager. You're looking at developing products to develop your business growth, to bring more of the right clients in to buy those offers. And again, there's that bit in the canyon in the middle where you need enough leads coming of the right leads, coming in purchasing the right things to have a decent-sized list that's a more relevant list to be able to purchase those other offerings that you've got there through as well. So this is obviously another conversation that you had with clients as to directing them to what's the possibilities again with their productization within their service offering. Is that correct? Yeah,

yeah. E-commerce is different. Like a product business selling soup or selling running shoes is very different than selling a large-scale consulting service.

Yeah.

Right? Whether you're running someone's ad campaigns in search or if you're running someone's massive CRM for like, you know, some scaled company in Salesforce, selling that is very different than selling a product. The math is different, the marketing is different, the, the, all the, all the bulk of the creation effort is upfront. It's not after you get paid, it's before you get paid. Anything, all that work's all got to go into it, and then you got to sell the thing. And, you know, yeah, the bulk of the work is done, but marketing it and selling it, creating content for it so you can continue to move units, is a lot of work. Yeah, yeah,

yeah, a lot, a lot of work and unexpected work, because the enthusiasm is often around, let me create it because I've got I've got all of this stuff. Yeah. It's easy to create. It's easy to create. It's then complex to package. And then you've got the rest of the scale, the rest of the other elements through there as well. So from a client's perspective, when you've onboarded clients and you've got clients that are in that growth phase for you, Is there a, is there a journey and some commonalities that are coming through that with your clients there as well when they're sort of hitting those next stages of growth with you as it relates to the work that you're doing?

I don't know about commonality. A lot of them struggle with content at scale, uh, after a website is up. You know, tree falling in the woods doesn't get heard, and, you know, a website published and unmarketed or, you know, underserved without content is just sitting on a street by itself. I know I'm mixing metaphors here, but the idea would be— and, and what I do at launch, uh, and it's just this year, it's relatively new— is I have this, this content planner that I, that I used in my business. And someone was like, that thing's really awesome, you need to sell it. And I was like, well, how about I just give it to my subscribers? And and add it as a value add.

Yeah.

So you can create basically in an afternoon, you can create literally an entire year's worth of content topics in this massive table sorted by month. And the other axis of the table is all the things that you do and think and believe. And it's pretty awesome. It's super thorough. And that's a great deliverable for them to go, okay, I can get over that. What am I gonna make today for social media hump? Because a lot of people are working day to day and then they go 3 weeks, 3 months without posting anything. Uh, so that, that's the first problem that they have is, is how do I market? How do I make more content? And then the next challenge, and we've kind of already touched on it, is how do I scale myself and my expertise with digital products? That's common as well,

uh,

outside of of SEO, which I don't, I don't create written content for, for my clients. Um, I have some AI options like I offer, but I don't know if that's really the right— I don't know if that's really the answer in the long run. Like, creating content at scale is extremely expensive if you want it to be any good, and most clients will run into that at some point. They want more search rankings, they want more traffic. Um, but I would, I would say for them, I usually just say pick a platform. Don't, don't try to be on all the platforms. Pick one platform. And then they say, which one? It doesn't matter which one. It might change what you do or say, but just pick one. They're, they're all awesome. Yeah, the one you like touching, the one you enjoy being in, just do that one. And when you've mastered it and you feel like you've gotten every single lead out of it that you could possibly get out of it, then you can add another one.

Yeah, and I'm just gonna say here, I love this again because we're getting back to the simplification of it, you know. Find platform, just work on one platform, work on the one platform that you find the easiest, that you actually like opening If you're opening up one of the other platforms and get a little bit of a cringe, I've got my favorite, which is LinkedIn, and the other one, it's sort of like, don't make me go in there, please.

Everybody's got those.

Yeah, we've all got it. And this comes back to that flow and that effortless and that ease and how we can certainly make things much, much easier for ourselves as well, which is just awesome. And that content piece and being able to provide that value-add for your clients. I can imagine and know how, you know, how inspiring that can be because there's nothing worse than staring at a blank page wondering what you're going to post about or talk about today. It's why, you know, the service that we do with the book maximizing and helping people pull their content out of their books, at least they've got some inspiration from a graphic tile to start having a deep and meaningful conversation versus is just, you know, content for the sake of content, which is not generally good content. So,

right. And you don't even have to say that much. You're 100% right. Like, all the content they need is in the book. They have it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They just don't see it.

No. And, and, and, and we— and this is the thing, we don't see it. And this is why I love this conversation and this, you know, Sally and Wayne nag around consistency and simplification, because, you know, we do just make it too much for ourselves. Everyone's and says, oh no, I need that many words on a post. It's not. If I look at some of the emails that get a reaction from me from some of the people that I follow, sometimes it's a really simple one that says, hey Sally, I just met somebody the other day, or hey Sally, and I thought of you. What are you up to? That just inspires that reconnection and that engagement. Everyone goes, oh, but I need an email marketing sequence. It's like, Sometimes you just need to reach out and remind people that you're actually a human.

Yeah, and, and other people don't see all the things you're putting out. So you can put out 6 things repeatedly on loop and it will seem fresh and clean to everybody, pretty much. Like, if you've ever talked to, uh, the CEO of a really humongous, like, multi-billion dollar company, they say the same 5 or 6 things Over and over again. Every time you see them in the halls, every time you see them in a conference room, every time they come and talk to your team, they say the exact same thing over and over for a year. Yeah, that's it. That's the talking point. This is how we're going to steer the team. This is what I want them focused on. Your audience is no different.

And the content and the personal nags that we have, or the rants, or the you know soapbox. Moments we have as experts and service-based business owners. There is a pattern to everything that we do. And part of what I love with what you're doing with your spreadsheet that helps people with the content is you're actually giving them that structure of enabling them to see what they're thinking and feeling and experiencing. They can map it out because as you touched on before, you know, when we sit inside our own jars, we actually can't read the label. At the front. But we do have those repeating patterns, those repeating nags or themes. Those sorts of spreadsheets and the tools enable you to capture things on the run that you can then explore and expand on later, which really helps to capture and, you know, have that content because you've got a starting point of inspiration and then moment to moment you've got the relevance that then ties it in and makes it relevant. Relevant for the, for the audience, um, that you're serving there as well.

Yeah, that's why I like the tiny offer that we talked about 5 minutes ago. Like,

yeah,

get them into your funnel. They're, they're all making emotional decisions. They're looking for something because they're trying to solve something or work through a thing that they're challenged by. So if you just solve today's challenge with something really small and fast that does that, you instantly start earning trust.

Correct.

You can sell something bigger later. Like, just get them into the network, get them to know you, like you, and trust you. And you, you know, that, that network, that community can be something you can build upon into the future, and it does wonders for your business.

Absolutely. And as you said, those bite-sized offers and those tiny things, when you're easy to consume, you become inevitable to buy because, uh, you know, you've built that trust And we always talk about if somebody can come along and consume your content and they've dropped in to consume your content even on their worst day, then you are becoming that trusted person. They may not have even engaged with you yet, but they're still dropping in. We've all had clients, and your clients would have had the same conversation where they say, oh, we've been following you for ages and the timing's right now. Oh, I've been following you for 2 years. We don't know who they are. They might be on our database, but we've not actually had any conversation with them. And lo and behold, they've been consistently consuming, and because we've been consistent in what we're doing in our messaging and etc., and now that they're ready to buy. And that's part of building those tiny offers to really support that process happening organically.

100%.

Yeah, we're getting towards the end. We've got a sort of 5 or 8 minutes to go. I'd like to find out from you what you would like to do as it relates to your business over the next 5 years. What sort of legacy are you looking to leave for yourself, but also for your clients? And I know that's such a big question, and people answer that in all, all sorts of different ways, but just give us a bit of an idea of what the— what's, what's the future that you're currently painting For yourself and for your clients.

Yeah, I, I have, I have crystal clarity. It's, you know, I've added the done with you even though I haven't gotten its marketing right, uh, yet. Or maybe I have and I haven't made any sales yet, but I will. So, you know, shifting the exact same process, right? It's just, that's the thing, the 5 fingers on my hand, that's the thing. Yeah. And done for you into done with you leads into DIY. Like, turn it into a course and then fewer touch points with me, and then that's how you really start to scale your expertise. But I just can't make a giant course like that and expect to sell any units, right? So build up the business that does it for you, then augment that business with the done with you, and then once that has scaled to a certain point, then I can start thinking about the other one. Because— and we haven't really talked about this, but I have, um, I have a daughter with special needs. So she's not likely to be able— capable of taking care of herself once I'm gone.

Hmm.

So what kind of world do I want her to live in? And that's my vision board. That's what I'm aiming toward, is building a thing that is sort of like a board of directors and a Personal Choices board of directors that can help her manage money, manage her living situations, and manage adulthood. She's 17 now, so she's not that far away. So I'm working frantically to create a future for her that minimizes as much as I can the number of hardships that will be confronting her as I age out. And, um, I don't know exactly what all of that looks like, but I know the kind of business I want to build. Um, you know, if this thing can get up to a million dollars here, then I'll start making meaningful contributions to the longer-term vision. And I'm not getting any younger. I'm running out of time. Right. So, uh, it is an absolute race every single day to do the good work and, you know, the micro choices that I have to make in order to hopefully stack those up high enough to be able to reach what I'm trying to get to.

Beautiful. And we did touch on that when we first, uh, first spoke, um, and I'm glad you shared that. Thank you. With your daughter. Um, What I love about the way you've conversed is, again, you've talked about that clarity. When you have that distinct clarity, it gives you this simplicity. For you, it's about that meaningful impact. Again, you've come back to the micro-stacking. When you know what the clarity is, you can actually see the little incremental stacks that you can actually make. Yeah. Again, all of that's come out in the conversation, for you to share that last little bit and again go through your same process again, to me just really exemplifies that inner genius that you have of really, really helping create clarity. So you've got that scalability so you can create the meaningful impact that business owners want to do, that you want to do as a father, that we all want to do as community members, etc., as Well, so beautiful. Thank you. So can I ask you, just in the last couple of minutes, if you can let people know where— how is— how and where is the best place to actually connect with you and find out more?

Well, I'm pretty connected on LinkedIn. A lot of people DM me. I get DMs in there every day, even though I don't publish in there every day, but I have a huge network. So that LinkedIn's a great place to connect. And then my YouTube channel I go live on YouTube 3 times a week.

Oh my gosh, well done!

I, I make a lot of YouTube videos, and you know, sometimes it's strategic stuff, like these are tips and tricks for business leadership or business ownership in general. Sometimes it's Squarespace related, obviously, and other times it's just life, like liveness. Like, I'm like, today I just basically put all of my limiting beliefs out. So now nobody can pick on my limiting— nobody can pick on me. I can say, yeah, I kind of talked about that. So I basically ranted on for 16 minutes on my limiting beliefs. So vulnerable. But, um, I figure if, if I'm not willing to put that out there, how's anybody gonna ultimately trust me? If I'm just going to be expertising every day and dropping knowledge bombs, like, that's fine. But that's the long way around, and ultimately running a business is the activity of human interaction.

Oh my God!

We're all in the people business, so I'm gonna show up as my true self, my honest self. You know, there were times when I was younger and I didn't have the confidence to do that, so I was quiet on social media. But I'm done caring what other people. think about what I want to niche into and what I want to build and how I want to build it. I'm just going to go and do that thing, and if they want to come, that's great, and if they don't, that's, that's great too. I'm not here to make anybody do something they don't want.

Beautiful, Wayne. Thank you. It's been an absolute pleasure sharing time with you and sharing and showcasing your wisdom, and what a beautiful way to finish off the episode with you today. So, Wayne, thank you so much.

Thanks for having me. You're so welcome. This was a joy.

Thank you. Thank you, everyone. We will look forward to seeing you again on another episode of Success Secrets Exposed. Till then, take care. See you soon.

Remember, if you want to be sought after and sold out, as well as being known as the obvious expert in your industry, you need to speak with Sally at Our host of Success Secrets Exposed. Sally is the founder of Monetize Your Content, a done-for-you content marketing agency that helps you be easy to buy. See you next week on another episode of Success Secrets Exposed. Tune in live every Tuesday at 7:00 PM Eastern time or Wednesday mornings in Australia on W4CY Radio and Talk4TV.