Righteous Hang: How to Build a Purpose-Driven Solopreneur Business Without Funnel Gymnastics

Welcome to a Righteous Hang. Members of the Transcendent Solopreneurship Substack were invited to attend this little digital campfire. Hello, Judith. And this is just an opportunity. Sometimes we do these actually live on Zoom where we can all see and hear each other, but I decided to try it as a Substack Live just as an experiment. And so this is just a very kind of loose, easy hang on a Sunday afternoon, at least Sunday afternoon here on the East Coast of the USA. And what we're going to do is I'm going to share a couple of questions/prompts that are intended to provide a little insight and inspiration for your Sunday around the idea of purpose-driven prosperity as a solopreneur who would like to make a little bit of a better living while they make a bigger difference doing work that matters with people that they care about without having to waste any time on digital marketing gymnastics. And so what we'll do to get started is if you don't mind, just in the chat, share where you're joining from. You can be geographic if you want. I wouldn't be too specific. I wouldn't give your street address or anything like that, but if you want to tell us what town or province or state that you're tuning in from, that's great. And if, if you want to be a little bit more playful, if you have, uh, you can be whimsical or, or creative with your responses as well. And I would just love to hear where people are tuning in from. I, I see Sandra and Penny, who are, uh, Inner Circle members, and Alice is a Circle member. Bree just joined. She's an Inner Circle member, so of course I, I kind of know where you guys are all tuning in from. But Judith and, and Rudy, great to have you here. Um, so yeah, we're just sharing in the chat right now, where are you tuning in from? Sunny and snowy Nelson, British Columbia. Holy cow, Sandra, I'm jealous already. We are told we're going to have a real winter here in southwestern Virginia, but It's going to be 60 degrees plus next week. So who knows? I know Penny is tuning in from Portland, Maine, or South Portland, Maine. Bree is tuning in from Florida. Awesome. Great to have you all here. Judith and Rudy, if you want to weigh in, always great to hear where folks who I'm not familiar with are tuning in from. So Alice is tuning in from Kent in the United Kingdom. So we are an international gathering today. That's really awesome. So while the rest of you are sharing where you're tuning in from, uh, I'm gonna ask you to just go ahead and drop in the chat here what's, what's, uh, an intention that you have for this hang. Is there some sort of question that it would be great if you left with an answer to, or is there an insight, um, or a topic that you would like unpacked here? If there's anything that you have, um, for as an intention for this hang, and if you want to just have fun and, and are hoping that Scott will share some of his hilarious dad jokes, that's fine too. But share an intention. What, what would make this hang truly righteous for you. And just a little hint that towards the end of our time together, if anybody wants to share what they're working on, where they're stuck, and one question that you'd love some input on, I'll either answer those through the chat here Or I think it's possible that, yeah, we could also bring you into the room here and the broadcast room, and we could do a little live coaching or live Q&A type of situation here. So if there is some sort of question or insight that you would love some reflection on, there's a challenge that you'd like to unpack, feel free to do that. But for right now, if there is any kind of intention that you want to share for this hang, what would make this hang a truly righteous event for you, you can share that. Sandra says, this just popped into my head yesterday, the difference between the rearview mirror and what got you here is not going to get you where you want to go. Yeah. That's a great insight. So yeah, we talk a lot about the rearview mirror when, uh, and Sandra has been a multiple offender when it comes to, um, being one of my one-on-one coaching clients. And we have talked a lot about the rearview mirror. Hey, Judith, it's okay to be here just by accident. It's probably serendipity. Who knows, maybe it's destiny or fate that's brought you here, but we're Grateful to have you here. Um, why is the rearview mirror so important? So people that have an entrepreneurial spirit or soul tend to be the kind of people that are naturally curious, avid learners, and, uh, interested in innovation and novelty. So Often when we are looking for insight or we are looking for a solution to a problem or a means to navigate a challenge or looking for a new aspiration, we look out the window. We're looking out like, where's the next shiny object? Where's the next guru that we're going to listen to who has some sort of interesting-sounding secret blueprint formula, uh, etc., roadmap. And what we end up doing is we just keep adding things to our to-do list. And it can be fun. It certainly is fun to collect dots. But if you actually want to build a business that funds and fits around the life that you want to live. And you're going to probably have to stop doing about 80% of the things that you're doing, especially all those things that are not actually giving you any discernible return on investment. And it probably has a lot less to adding anything new to your to-do list than it does getting rid of 80% of what you're doing and raising the floor on the 2 or 3 things that are going okay but could be going better. So the whole point of a rearview mirror is to look at what's already working. What, what are the things that you've done in the past that have worked? What are the things that you're doing that are working? And How can we optimize the system that already exists as opposed to trying to add things to a system? And so this is all— has completely— has to do with system reliability. Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it's getting. So if you are not happy with the results that you're currently getting with your business system. Uh, you have to at some point take responsibility and recognize that it's because the system is designed to get the results it's getting. And if you wake up tomorrow and do everything that you did today and expect different results, you're actually suffering from one of the three cardinal sins of solopreneurship, and that is delusion because it is kind of delusional to think that if you wake up today and do what you did yesterday that you're going to get any different results than you got yesterday. So, if you're going to get different results, if you're going to improve your system, if you're going to optimize your system to get you from where you are to where you want to be with greater ease and velocity, you're probably going to have to see be and do things differently. And the rearview mirror is going to provide the data that we need to collect so that we can analyze it and then iterate and improve our strategy and execute that strategy to build a system that delivers the results that we actually want to get. So I appreciate that share, Sandra. Cassie, great to— I hope I'm saying your name right. If it's Casey, I apologize. Looks spelled to me like it's Cassie. Great to have you here. So Sandra also mentioned what got you here won't get you there, or what got you where you are won't get you where you want to be is the way I usually phrase it. And that's exactly what the rearview mirror is designed, intended to help with. It's a way of looking at the existing system and instead of adding things to it, which will immediately diminish the effectiveness and efficiency of the system because we think that systems are going to be improved through addition. But a system is only as effective as the product of the efficiency of each of its component parts. So if you have a system that has 3 elements that are 90% efficient, it's not 90% efficient. It's a system that is— if each component is 90% efficient, it's 0.9 times 0.9 times 0.9, which is 72% efficient. If you add another component, even if it's 90% efficient as well, you just drove down the efficiency of the system to 63%. And so what we know from system reliability is that systems are basically— math problems. And what we can do to optimize the system right away is audit the system and eliminate any unnecessary or redundant parts. If we get rid of things that aren't delivering a discernible return on investment, we can test whether or not they could be eliminated altogether. By eliminating them, we automatically boost the efficiency and effectiveness of the system. And once we get down to the few things that need to go right for you to collapse time to target between where you are and where you want to be with greater ease and velocity, then we can start raising the floor on whichever the least efficient component is. And by doing that, we will collapse time to target. All right. Alice says, intention is to change myself and remove the negative situations and put my bumpers up. I, I wouldn't change yourself too much, Alice. You and I have known each other for a while now. I think you're awesome just as you are, and I've also seen that you've been making great strides at improving your, your habits, which has definitely, in my estimation, had a discernible impact on your mindset. And that's the way mindset works. We think we have to change our minds in order to change our behavior, but it's actually the other way around. Um, you, you actually— mindset is informed by posture, not the other way around. You don't change your mind and then change the, the way you are. You change the way you are, and that informs a mindset that facilitates becoming the person you want to become. You become the thing by doing the thing, not You don't become the thing by thinking about becoming the thing or thinking about the kind of person that needs to be to become the thing. You become the thing by doing the thing. Hello, Ashley. Great to have you here. So we're just getting started with some, some starter prompts. And so for those of you that have arrived since we got started, if you want to jot down where you're tuning in from, I would love to hear where, where you are. And, uh, yeah, it has been a while, Ashley. And then after you share where you're tuning in from, then, um, share what an intention, like what would make this Righteous Hang actually, uh, a righteous event for you. Oh, San Antonio, Texas. Beautiful. So as we're kind of heading into the meat and potatoes of, you know, the, the, the, the call here. Of the hang, that let's think about what's one tension that you're holding right now in your work. It's not a complaint, not, and certainly not some sort of situation, right? We can't resolve a situation in a 45-minute call. But Is there a particular problem or edge or energetic, um, you know, energetic chaos right now that you're kind of leaning into right now? Is there an edge or some energy that you're leaning into right now, some tension that you're holding or leaning into, um, because you know that if you could navigate this, resolve this, or, or get rid of this, that it would actually help you get clear about closer to what you really want as a solo business owner. So anything that you want to share around naming a tension, some energy, an edge that you're holding right now and that you're leaning into that would help you move your endeavor forward? That is the question that is on offer, or the invitation on offer right now. I'm getting a direct message from someone through the Substack. I'm over here looking at my, at my laptop. And, uh, yeah, so, um, yeah, we definitely don't want to get into, uh, into anything too heavy here. I am, I am not, uh, not a trained professional when it comes to navigating serious, uh, you know, personal situations, uh, and that sort of thing. But if you have something related to your business, I'm, I'm happy to address that. Sandra asks what to do, follow up or not, with conversations with leads that are engaged and then drop off into the abyss. Yeah, so it's, it's a great edge to be leaning into. It's always, um, interesting to, especially when you use the approach that we advocate in the Purpose-Driven Prosperity model here at Transcendent Soulpreneurship. It's all conversational. It's all based— and we don't believe in any funnel gymnastics. I'm not ask— never going to ask you to create an ideal customer avatar and then a a power offer and then create a funnel where you have some sort of ethical bribe or lead magnet that gets someone's email address and jams them into an email sequence that leads them to a sales page. But if they don't end up on the sales page or the webinar or whatever it is, puts them into a nurture sequence where you just keep trying to cycle people through the funnels so that they can land on this sales page and buy something from you. Your typical funnel, digital marketing funnel. Yeah, funnel gymnastics. Thank you, Alice. Your typical digital marketing funnel requires a huge investment of your time, attention, money, and effort. Most of the solopreneurs I work with actually spend more than 80% of their time in their business doing digital marketing stuff and not the work that they actually started their business to do in the first place. So that's kind of sad. And what's even sadder is your typical digital marketing funnel has a 2% conversion rate, meaning 2% of the people that start off with giving you an email address for your opt-in, go through the email sequence, go through the nurture sequence, go hit your webinar, complete your webinar, hit the land, sales page and buy. That's a 2% conversion. And that's if your funnel, your digital marketing funnel, is one of the best digital marketing funnels in the world. And yours probably is not, in part because if you're doing a solopreneur and truly doing everything on your own, you're learning how to do this stuff on the fly. Maybe you took a course or joined a mastermind, but that's a lot of time, attention, money, and effort to burn and invest in something that gives you such a low rate of return. And so what we use instead is this conversational approach where we have icebreaker conversations where we invite someone that has expressed some interest in who we are and what we do and more importantly, what we could do for them and provide a little insight, some value, through this icebreaker exchange, maybe it's something as simple as, hey, what are you trying to move forward right now? And what's the biggest challenge? Once you help them get a little clarity about direction, like what are they actually trying to accomplish? Where are they starting? And what are they starting with? You can invite them into a diagnostic conversation where you provide a handful of questions that will help them create a— help you create a roadmap for them that will help them see how they can collapse time to target between where they are and where they want to be. And I recommend you do icebreaker and diagnostic conversations for free. And you're doing that anyways if you have a digital marketing funnel. That's, you know, the whole point of a digital marketing funnel is to get someone on a silly discovery call that everybody knows is actually a thinly veiled sales call where you're going to try to back them into a corner and guilt and shame them into giving you their credit card, which they'll regret doing as soon as they do it. But if you deliver real value, real clarity of direction, real clarity about path through this icebreaker and diagnostic conversation, then you can move people into some sort of low-ticket continuance program where you're going to help them wayfind their way, get some traction and momentum going by helping them navigate the inevitable obstacles and opportunities that come once you start to step into possibility in terms of what you're trying to accomplish or the problem you're trying to solve. And if you deliver value at each of these stages, number one, you start to get paid much sooner than you do through the digital marketing funnel. But the— you're demonstrating your preeminence, your competence, your authority, your expertise, your personality and preferences are coming through. There's— you'll find values alignment. And people will just naturally keep taking the next step, which will end up being buying, purchasing your one-on-one coaching program or your course or whatever your mid-ticket or high-ticket offer is. The conversion rate that I'm currently getting with that same funnel, which takes way less time than a digital marketing funnel, I'm doing it without any social media, doing it without any paid ads, I'm doing it without any real funnel, is in quarter 2, that funnel was converting at 20%. 20% of the people that started a conversation with me ended up buying a mid or high ticket program. And in Q3, that was boosted to 38%. So much bigger return on investment, much less time, money, energy, and effort invested. And the thing about this system is that you are honing your skills and talents and refining your processes, courses, approach along the way, which means that you are becoming the best in the world at doing what you do in the way that you do it along the way. So getting to Sandra's question, what do I do with follow-up conversations with people that were engaged but then drop off into the abyss? So I'll give you A couple of things here, Sandra. The first is, number one, we actually give up on the conversations often more than the people that we are talking to. Everybody is busy. Many of us are feeling some stress. We have lots of challenges in our lives. We have lots of competing and conflicting priorities, and things can just come up. And so while someone that you're speaking to may have expressed that interest early with all of the best intentions, we just don't know what's going on in their lives at any given moment. You know, maybe the baby got sick, maybe their spouse just lost their job, Maybe the holidays were coming up. I mean, we just don't know. And so what we have to, I think what we have to recognize is that as we're having these conversations, even though they are grounded in true authentic human-to-human connection, conversation, collaborative wayfinding, problem-solving, aspiration, achievement. Things will come up on their end. And so the first thing is don't give up too soon. You can help set the stage. Like when I am doing icebreaker conversations, I just let people know, hey, I have a couple questions that I could ask you that would help you get greater clarity about what you're actually trying to accomplish and how you can get there if you can answer them in the next couple of days, I'd be happy to share some insights or reflections or suggest next steps that will help. And if they don't answer in a couple days, I'll just let them know, hey, the weekend's coming, and I understand that life gets busy. And if this is not a good time to do this, that's totally fine. But I'm going to, you know, stop following up with you after this message. If you do want to stay in touch, just please respond before the weekend comes. And oftentimes that will— I'll get responses like, oh yeah, sorry, I got sidetracked by whatever life event. Here's the answers to the questions. I do the same thing when I send up the diagnostic question response. If they raise their hand and say, yeah, I'd love to see your 5 questions, I just let them know this. If you get these back to me within the next 48 hours, I will give you my best advice for how you can start to collapse time to target between where you are and where you want to be. Um, so giving people some natural deadline, you know, something that's true, not, not a countdown timer for some sort of, oh, I only got 2 seats left. Um, the other is I have for people that sometimes fall off You know, like maybe they answered the icebreaker, maybe they asked for the diagnostic but didn't return the diagnostic, or they returned the diagnostic but never left a response about if they're interested in the Catalyst Exchange continuance or the Inbox Catalyst continuance program, which is a way of just building traction momentum on the work that we've done. I have something called a second chance campaign. And it basically is just another version of, "Hey, you responded to my, you know, these diagnostic questions for a reason or asked for the diagnostic questions for a reason. I just want to let you know that I'm here for the next couple of days. If you want to get them to me, I'd be happy to review them and help you get some traction." So, there's two pieces of advice, Sandra, that I hope are helpful. One is establish expectations, manage expectations early in the conversation by providing natural deadlines. But for people that do inevitably drop off just because life gets in the way or they get distracted or they get wooed away by some online guru or digital marketer, with whatever tricks and hacks they're cooking up. That Second Chance campaign is another way that you can rekindle the conversation and get people going. So one of the main reasons why I had such a significant bump in my conversion rate between Q2 and Q4 conversion from icebreaker question to client relationship is that Second Chance campaign. And we'll do a training on this at some point for all of you that are Circle and Inner Circle members. Hello, Kira. Great to have you here. We're just having a little righteous hang and answering some questions and discussing some things. So here's another question for you all if you're game to play along. What's one thing that you're doing right now that your future self will thank you for? What's one thing that you're working on right now or doing right now that your future self will thank you for? I'm thinking of you, Alice, because I know that you've made some significant changes in your habits that I'm sure you're already thanking yourself for, but your future self will be even more grateful for. And This also kind of cycles back to the conversation we were having earlier around what got you where you are won't get you where you want to be. Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets. So if you want different results, you're going to have to see things a little bit differently and do, you know, do things a little bit differently. And that's going to require you to be something a little different than you are currently being. You become the thing by doing the thing. So what is one thing you're doing right now that your future self will thank you for? And Bree gave a fantastic answer: pruning. So pruning is one of my favorite activities. For those of you that are familiar with my backstory, My wife and I moved to Southwestern Virginia from Charleston, South Carolina in 1999, and we bought a little homestead, a little 38-acre farm, 100-year-old falling-down farmhouse, huge garden, huge blueberry patch and apple orchard. And one of the things about having a homestead like that is when it comes to thinking about the return on investment in the next year's harvest is it's going to be impacted a lot by the pruning that you do in the fall and in the early winter months. You have to prune away a significant amount of the budding and fruiting potential of your pear trees and your peach trees and your apple trees and your blueberry bushes in order for that, those, those bushes and trees to be able to put more energy into less limbs, twigs, buds, flowers, and eventually fruit. And so what does this have to do with solopreneurship? Well, again, every system is perfectly designed to get the results it's getting. And if your system is bloated and you're doing too many things, you're— as a solopreneur especially, you operate within the constraints of 24 hours in a day. There's only so much time in a day that you have the attention and focus that you can put into something, not to mention the energy and/or financial resources necessary. So it's important as a solopreneur that you're only doing the right things at the right time and in the right sequence. And so pruning is a way that we talk about auditing our system. We look at our system. Here's all the places where I'm investing my time, attention, money, and effort. And we look for where are the discernible returns on investment? Because if you're not getting a measurable return on investment in any given component of your system, you need to consider getting rid of it. You need to consider pruning it. So One of the things about system reliability is that every system is automatically boosted, improved, optimized through subtraction. If you get rid of unnecessary, redundant, or underperforming parts that the system can survive without, you will automatically regain time, attention, money, and effort that can be injected into raising the floor on the components of the system that are necessary but are underperforming. So that idea of pruning is really powerful. And it's worth noting that the idea of subtraction and pruning is in opposition to our programming and conditioning. Human beings are programmed for novelty. We love cheap dopamine, which is why we, you know, want to join every new course and read every new book and try every new digital marketer tool and tactic, uh, or strategy. But those things are actually getting you further from what you want. You would be much better served to stop doing anything adding anything to your system, to be much better served to stop adding any new platforms or tools or tactics or strategies, and instead audit the things that you're already doing and get rid of anything that's unnecessary. You will automatically get more time, attention, money, and effort back, and your system will start to perform better simply through subtraction. So I hope That's helpful. Kira says, pursuing things that draw my interest, poetry and technology. Oh, that's awesome. So I love that, Kira. Yeah, I mean, so what are you doing right now that your future self will thank you for? I have made several attempts at creating some poetry myself. And even though it's not anything I would share with the world, it gives me a great amount of joy. And that certainly gives me a great amount of joy to read other people's poetry. And then it looks like technology is another edge that you're leaning into. I would love to hear more about that. Alice says, sorry, a rather long response. One thing is to be committed to sharing how I can help others take action in their path. I want to put in the path I want to play, helping footballers and others that gravitate, share regular actions, taking inspiration on moving people's bodies every 3 days, share insights that have a bit of script rather than random talk, and gather the data of responses. I'm sure you can give me some clarity from my ramble. Well, I love the way that you're talking, Alice, because you're talking about eliminating randomness and collecting data, right? You're talking about system thinking. And so one of the things to think about, and you have some of these components already, is the greatest danger that most solopreneurs, or the greatest trap that most solopreneurs fall into, is they are They are solution in search of a problem. Only the problem that they're trying to solve is actually more of a situation, which is much harder to solve than a problem, right? Situations are a complex amalgam of problems and you can't resolve a situation for someone else. You can't help someone navigate a situation. With some sort of power offer or checklist or roadmap or blueprint or whatever because they're highly personalized, idiosyncratic. They require a much more hands-on personalized approach. So rather than be a solution in search of a problem, better to Find the smallest viable audience, to quote my friend and mentor Seth Godin. Who are the people that are already in your circle of connections, your current network, whose permission and trust you've already earned? And how can you start conversations? Again, icebreaker diagnostic continuance into whatever your your mid-ticket or high-ticket offer is, how can you start some conversations with those people that help you help them define the problem that they're actually trying to solve or the aspiration that they're trying to achieve? If you have, uh, you know, and everybody kind of says that's impossible when I say this, but like, if you have 100 conversations with people where you are truly just being an active listener and helping them clarify the problem that they're trying to solve or the aspiration that they're trying to achieve and give them a little diagnostic help for crafting a path that will help them get from where they are to where they want to be with greater ease and velocity, you will never lack for business. If you can help 100 people solve their most immediate problem, uh, most of them, many of them will ask you how they can continue to work with you. And if you are able to transform the way that they are and show up in the world, their network will start to ask them what happened. And they will, if you've done a good job, they will be so glad. They'll say, oh, I, I met this woman Alice and she helped me create more energy and experience greater health. I have more energy for my kids now. I have a better relationship with my spouse now. I had whatever, right? Conversations are the way these things begin. So start with whatever number is— another Seth Godin idea is first 10. Have 10 conversations with people where you are purely being an active listener and asking a few coaching questions that help them define for themselves the problem that they have or the aspiration they want to achieve and try to diagnose what's actually in their way from accomplishing that and provide them with a little help taking the first steps towards navigating that bottleneck. And through that process, Some of those people will ask how they can work with you further. So you are doing this already, Alice, and the fact that, you know, you have the beginnings of a system. How many conversations did I start? How many of those people asked for my diagnostic questions? How many people that completed the diagnostic accepted an invitation into some sort of low-ticket continuance program where I help them get momentum and traction with the plan that we came up through the diagnostic. The whole point of the icebreaker and diagnostic is you create a roadmap for somebody and you say, here's where you are, here's where you want to be, here's what's in your way, and here's what you have to do next. Here, take this. It will help you. Get clear about closer to what you really want. And we know that time and randomness will happen, and we know that there are inevitably going to be obstacles and opportunities that come up that we can't see now. If you want some help to get started and start navigating your way towards what you really want, let me know. And that can be as simple as a 2-week coaching by email, continuance program for $100. But if you provide them clarity of direction, clarity of path for free, give them the roadmap, and then give them a— demonstrate your ability, your competence as a trusted guide that helps them navigate the obstacles and opportunities that come up early in the journey, they will definitely be interested in whatever your $200, $500, $1,000 offer is that will help them continue closing the gap and continuing to get there easier and faster because you're helping. And so that's all comes— how many conversations did I start? How many diagnostics did I deliver? How many continuance people continued through some sort of low-ticket offer? How many people bought my thing? If you have data, numbers to plug in, that's your system. And you can decide where's the underperforming piece of my system, where's the— where can I raise the floor so that I improve the overall conversion of the system from icebreaker to purchase? And just a little hint, the place to optimize is always going to be towards the end. If you can If you can improve the conversion rate of people that go from a low ticket to a mid-ticket offer, that's going to give you a huge return on investment compared to how do I just start more conversations. You can always, you can always improve the front end and start more conversations. But if the numbers along the way continue to be the same, then you're just setting yourself up to do a lot of busywork. Where what we all get juice from and joy from is the conversations where we're working one-on-one or in a small group or cohort with clients and helping them collapse time to target. And that happens at the conversion end of the funnel. So I hope that's helpful, Alice. Oh, Kyra did her first live today. Congratulations. Not sure. Kyra says, now I'm worried about my answer. I'm not sure if you're talking about your answer about poetry and technology, but if you want to share, that's fine. So we're kind of winding up this Righteous Hang. We've shared where we're tuning in from. We've shared an intention for this hang. We have shared an edge or some energy that we're leaning into. We've shared what our future self might thank us for. If there is anybody in these closing moments that wants to share, like Alice has done and Sandra has done, about what you're working on and where you're stuck, and if you can boil that down into one question that you'd love some input into, I am happy to take these last 10 minutes to help anyone that wants to answer those questions. What are you working on? Where are you stuck? What question do you have that you'd like some insight on? And while I'm giving you time to answer that, just a couple. So for free subscribers to Transcendent Soul Entrepreneurship and Circle and Inner Circle members, I just posted a note right before I went live here that I have completely updated and upgraded the Solopreneur Success Vault. So the Solopreneur Success Vault is a curated library of replays and resources about the Purpose Driven Prosperity System operating system, Purpose Driven Prosperity model operating system. And that is a process, a system that is made up of 3 core frameworks, the Forever Offer Framework, which is a perennial purpose-driven offer that doesn't require power offer gymnastics or no-brainer shenanigans. It's a way of showing up and positioning yourself in the world so that you actually attract the people would be ideal customers or clients for your offer. It's a very simple framework, something you could put together in just an hour or so. And then there is the Be a Blessing marketing web. I favor a web over a funnel. And so, it's just a way of setting up where you're— how you're getting the word out, where you're getting the word out, and making sure that you have a centralized location where you are having permission marketing-based conversations. Again, Seth Godin, Stone's, um, IP there. But, you know, where can I have anticipated personal relevant conversations with people that are eager to hear from me? And then Close the Gap, which is the, uh, priority setting and achievement planning framework for achieving your priorities with the greatest ease and velocity. And so that has all been updated and upgraded in the Solopreneur Success Vault. There's resources for free subscribers that give you overviews of each of the frameworks. There are replays, complete replays of all the workshops that we've done on each of those available to Circle members. And then for the past 2 weeks and wrapping up this week, I've actually been working on a quick start guide for each of the 3 core frameworks. So 2 weeks ago, On Monday, I gave an overview of the Forever Offer Framework, and then on Friday, I gave you a detailed worksheet and GPT, uh, Cornerman Coaching app prompt that you can put in to implement the learning. And then last week, we did the Be a Blessing Marketing framework, and again, Monday overview, Friday complete walkthrough worksheet and Cornerman Coaching app, uh, implementation prompt. And then this week coming up is the Close the Gap framework. And so free subscribers, Circle subscribers, you're welcome to look there. Inner Circle members, you know that, um, everything is already, uh, there for you in the Inner Circle All Access Vault. So Inner Circle members have access to a completely curated experience of each of the core framework replays. They have the presentation notes, they have worksheets, they have either extended Cornerman Coaching app prompts or entire custom GPTs dedicated to walking through and implementing the, the learning that happens, um, in everything that we've done, uh, in terms of teaching the Purpose-Driven Prosperity Model operating system. All right, so with that announcement, so if you're looking for that, just go to the Transcendent Solopreneurship, uh, publication, and in the publication search put in BALT or Solopreneur Success Vault, and you can start to access those resources right now. So Kira says, working on growing community, how best to invite one-on-one works mentoring/coaching. Kira, I would definitely encourage you to take a look at the Forever Offer Framework that I just talked about is available in the, in the vault. And Again, it's very simple. Like, you can invest a lot of time, attention, money, and effort into constructing a digital marketing funnel that gets you a 2% return on that investment of your priceless finite resources of time, attention, money, and effort. Or you can try this conversational model where you simply show up, do your thing, and let people watch, and the right people will actually ask you about joining your community or how they can work more closely with you. And that is coming up with an icebreaker question that gets conversation doing— going, moving them into some sort of diagnostic conversation where you can identify the things that they're doing that they need to stop doing, the things that they're doing that they need to do better, and demonstrate how whatever process or methodology or approach you use is a better fit for them and then move them into some sort of low-ticket continuance program, again, further demonstrating your competence and expertise. And then again, if you deliver value initially for free and then for a minimal investment, you're actually creating a client attraction. Process and not a digital marketing funnel that's based on scarcity, false urgency, and forcing people through a funnel. Because, you know, digital marketing funnels don't work by gravity, um, they work by force. You have to cram people through a funnel and you're going to lose 98% of them minimum. With the client attraction process, you become the gravity. By just demonstrating compassion, care, consideration, and competence in your abilities or your course or whatever it is, people naturally, the right people just naturally keep stepping into possibility with you until you end up with people that are in proximity and access to you and the difference that you can help them make. So I would encourage you to check that out, Kira. How do you stay focused with your time, Scott, to not go down rabbit holes yourself? What happens when you go into chaos? I have to keep it simple. I tell you what, that's a great question, and I think I probably am not as good at not going down rabbit holes as you think I am, Alice. This could definitely be considered a rabbit hole. You know, I have constructed a business that allows me to make my entire revenue goal for the year by June, and I only work 2 hours a day, 5 days a week. And that means that I have a lot of free time on my hand. I spend the majority of that being daycare for my grandsons. So I actually, I don't have a ton of free time right now, uh, because caring for two grandsons 5 days a week, 9 hours a day is, uh, a lot more work than it was caring for one grandson. Um, but we love it. It's my, my priority. My life priority is to be the daycare provider for our grandsons and, um, And yes, I still sometimes catch myself getting distracted by all the ridiculous false promises, uh, of online gurus and digital marketers and exploring, um, you know, new tools, tactics, etc. What keeps me grounded is give you two things. One is I do an audit at the beginning of every quarter where I literally account for where my time, attention, and effort is being invested in terms of my business. So I audit, I do a serious audit of the numbers, like What am I spending my time on? What am I spending my money on? Where am I investing my energy? And what is the return on those investments? And if I can't prove a discernible return on something that I'm playing with on the left side of the barbell, right, the explore, then I will often just mothball it. Put it aside and stop investing time, attention. If I have something that seems to be delivering results, then I will get rid of all the things that I can stop doing because they're not giving me any discernible return on investment. And I will take something that has promise and move it all the way across the barbell to become an asset or a resource that I can exploit, meaning I can use to get closer to what I want. And so, um, I am only working on a few new things at a time, and I'm only working on things that are very low risk in terms of they're not going to burn me out or blow me up, and they have a significant asymmetrical upside potential to them. It's worth putting the time and effort into them because if it works, it will give me You know, it's just an outsized bet. I'm going to get a lot more for my time, attention, money, and effort than I have to invest. So that's one thing. The other thing is anytime, and I come up with a lot of ideas like every single day, like, oh, I should write a new book, or, oh, I should take this course, or, oh, I should read this book, or, oh, I should explore Google Ads, or whatever it is. Never act on something right away. I refuse to allow myself to invest any time, attention, money, and effort in any idea for a project or for a program that I'm interested in for at least a couple of weeks. Often I'll let it sit for a month. If after a month I'm still thinking about it and I'm still really jonesing to invest some time, attention, money, and effort, I'll consider at that point. But 90% of the time, at least 80% of the time, if I let something sit for a couple weeks, I actually get bored with it and, and/or forget all about it. And so I eliminate a lot of unnecessary, um, cycles and spinning my wheels on things that won't make a difference by simply not doing anything right away. I, I, I sit on it, wait on it, and if it's still calling me I then will micro-step into whether or not it's going to work. Oh, thank you, Kara. Kara says, "Really appreciate the Seth references and setting priorities. We'll check out The Vault." Thank you. You're welcome. Yeah. So, I was— that's my origin story. I leveraged a 7-year association with Seth Godin as an Alta MBA coach in waiting and then an Akimbo coach for 5 years, a head coach at Akimbo for 2 years. And a partner in the Good Bits Project. All of those adventures with Seth Godin actually provided the runway that I needed to transition from a very successful career as a professional guitarist and teacher to doing the work that I'm doing now. And I credit Seth Godin and, you know, whatever promise he saw in me and invested in me that made all the difference for me. So, uh, you Yeah, if you join our community, you will hear me reference Seth Godin quite often. He's— I'm a, I'm a big fan, and I owe him a debt of gratitude. Penny says, I am working on conversations with potential clients. I like the discussion on problem and situations. I'm thinking that being clear about mission can be a beginning problem. Clients can— clients tend to be focused on how to get the money. Would that lead to a situation. Yeah, that's a great insight, Penny. So in your domain where you're working with fundraising professionals, whether they're CEOs of institutions or fundraisers within those organizations, the situation is we're struggling to fund our campaigns. Well, that's not a problem you can fix. That's a problem that is a situation made up of a lot of problems, but the most immediate problem and one that would unlock the greatest acceleration in terms of closing the gap is to make sure that the mission of the organization is clearly defined.. And that there is agreement about the mission in terms of the institution, the CEO, the campaign director, the board of directors, the fundraisers, and the donors that you're reaching out to. Because everybody, if everybody is on mission, if everybody understands and believes in the cause that you're working toward, it's a lot easier to raise funds. In fact, raising funds almost becomes a side effect of just having the conversations and building the connections that are necessary to create the bridge between the donor and the campaign and the beneficiaries of that campaign. So I think focusing on mission first is a really good idea. You're welcome, Alice. Yeah, yeah, don't leap too quickly is always a good idea. All right, so we've managed to waste a little over an hour in having a righteous hang. I hope it was a good hang, if not a righteous hang, and that it was worth your time. If you are intra— if you are not currently a subscriber to Transcendent Solopreneurship, I would encourage you to at least start with the free plan. If you are a free subscriber, I have invested a lot of time and there is a ton of value in the Solopreneur Success Vault. You can get a complete understanding and help with implementation of the entire purpose-driven prosperity model operating system, Forever Offer, Be a Blessing Marketing Web, and Close the Gap Priority and Success Planning, um, for $9 a month. In fact, you could sign up for one month of paid membership as a circle member, access all that content, and be done with it before the end of the month. And then you could decide whether it's worth another $9 to continue the work. But, um, You know, Penny, Sandra, Bree, uh, Alice, um, these are all Circle and Inner Circle members that could speak to the value and virtue of the communities, the Circle and Inner Circle communities. Um, some— Alice is a Boxer Velocity client, Penny is a Cornerman Coaching client, Sandra has been a Cornerman Coaching client, Bree is a Boxer Velocity client. They can also speak a little bit to the value and virtue of, uh, the programming. Richard, you joined in just in time for us to sign off, so I apologize for that, but we've been at it for over an hour here. We've had a great conversation. So again, thank you all for joining me in this Righteous Hang. I always love creating these little digital campfires and having people come around the circle and share what they're dreaming about and aspiring toward and the challenges that you have. Always appreciate when someone drops a bad joke or just a hilarious anecdote. And yeah, I hope this was fun. Certainly fun for me. And I'll see some of you on our Monday On Purpose call tomorrow for Circle and Inner Circle members. And for everyone else and for Circle and Inner Circle members, be well, do good, have fun.