Latest / Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say / From $5K to $413K Clients: Capture The Value You Provide with Ann Carden

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From $5K to $413K Clients: Capture The Value You Provide with Ann Carden · Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say

0:00
Welcome to another episode of 6 Figure Secrets for Fractional
0:04
Experts. My name is Bradley Jacobs.
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I'm your host, the founder and CEO of Mylance.
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Today I'm really excited to be joined by Ann Cardin.
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This is Part 2 and is an elite strategic growth advisor and
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founder of expert in new brand programs, media and marketing
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firm. She works with experience
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fractionals and entrepreneurs selling professional services
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who are ready for their next level.
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She said before the show, you know, simplify so they can
0:31
multiply, right? That's the tagline really all
0:34
about landing bigger clients, more opportunities and stand out
0:39
and compete at the level they belong.
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And so thankful for you joining us today.
0:44
Thanks, Bradley. It's great to be back with you.
0:47
Awesome. So since we've chatted last,
0:50
you've gotten bigger and better and refining your offer.
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We'd love to really just hear from you.
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What are you seeing as you continue to grow your business?
0:58
That's the biggest game changer for the fractionals and any kind
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of, you know, maybe agency owner that's a little bit bigger than
1:05
the fractionals. You really have to simplify and
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what I mean by that is you have to get super focused.
1:12
I call it your $1,000,000 offer. It is an offer that you can
1:16
really position yourself for. You're brilliant at delivering.
1:21
It's very focused. It's very your business is very
1:24
streamlined and that is the fastest path to scaling and also
1:28
bringing in really, really high end clients.
1:32
But even simplifying your business, if if you think about
1:35
it, if you're working with the same kind company are the same
1:38
type of business all the time, you're going to be able to
1:40
really simplify and systematize your frameworks and, and the
1:46
work that you do. And it makes it easier to get
1:48
help or whatever it is you need to get more freedom back into
1:50
your business. Because at the end of the day,
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isn't that what we want? Money and freedom?
1:55
Yeah. And and we get money through
1:57
offering value, right. So I know there's that's a
2:00
really big yeah, I think of first like if I offer a ton of
2:03
value, the money will follow. Yeah, absolutely.
2:07
I love the idea of simplifying to make more right Simplify to
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multiply. So when you talk about being
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focused, that can mean so many different things, like what does
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it really mean? Yes, it's really about
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discovering what your true expertise is and how you like to
2:25
work with your clients or what you want to do with them.
2:27
So if you are in scale mode, you already have had client results,
2:32
you've already worked with different types of clients
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probably, and you have probably discovered the clients that you
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love to work with and want to get more of and the ones that
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you don't, right? So in a way, it's like cutting
2:47
away what isn't really working in your business so that you can
2:51
get more of what is. And that's where you can go more
2:55
premium. You can really create services
2:59
that are going to be more aligned with where your
3:01
expertise is. You can streamline things a lot
3:04
more. So all of those are pieces of
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it. So you said $1,000,000 offer and
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some of our audience might be making 304050 KA month, some of
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our audience might be making, you know, 10 KA month where they
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have like 3-3 K clients. If that feels so outrageous to
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me to make $1,000,000 through services, especially if I'm a
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business of one, maybe I have a contractor or two.
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How can I apply this to my business if if I'm in the boat
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of like 3 clients at 5 or you know, three or five KA month
3:36
each? Yeah, so a lot of times
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fractionals are undervaluing and underselling themselves.
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I have talked to people. I I think about one person.
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One time she came to one of my workshops and she had sold a
3:48
$250,000 offer and it sounded great and it was with a really
3:55
recognized company and brand. But what she told me is that she
4:00
lost all, all kinds of money on the back end with that offer.
4:03
It was so underpriced. And so this is what happens a
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lot of times when you don't have your offer structured in the
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right way. But when I talk about $1,000,000
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offer, I'm talking about something that you won't be able
4:15
to scale. So it could be a six figure
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offer that you're selling to 10 clients.
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That would be a million. It could be 1/4 of $1,000,000
4:25
offer. It could be a $50,000 offer
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where you're working with 20 clients.
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Most even boutique firms or fractionals could handle 20
4:34
clients if they structure things in the right way, especially for
4:37
something like a $50,000 offer. So that's really what we're
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talking about. One of the problems I see is
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that people don't sell their real value, the thing that would
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really move the needle. They are often selling a little
4:52
bit of their expertise or a little bit of their value
4:56
instead of pulling in all of their brilliance, all of their
4:59
skills and their knowledge and the results and things that
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they've been able to accomplish, pulling that all in and then
5:05
going after those type of clients.
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So let's make this tangible. Let's say I am a marketing
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analytics consultant or you know, even a fractional CMO,
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let's say like expertise in helping businesses grow.
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How can I think about a six figure offer when I come to you
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and I say, Anne, I'm a really amazing marketer.
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I'm really, I'm really good at helping businesses grow.
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What do you do with that? Yeah, So that's not defined
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enough. I would pull from you.
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OK, tell me more about that. What are some of the results
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that you've had with clients? What are things that you'd
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confidently know you could basically repeat with other
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clients and then let's figure out.
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And so then you're you're building by the value.
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Here's an easy example. You helped a company get
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$1,000,000 extra to their bottom line.
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That's a six figure offer. Easy, easy.
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It could be almost a half $1,000,000 offer if you help
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them make $1,000,000 in additional profits.
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So that's kind of how you would want a package and price it,
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especially with the thing with fractionals is they're in the B
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to B space. They are helping people grow and
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make money, right? And, and that's what people are
6:20
are buying into. So you want to make sure that
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offer is very quantifiable and then build the value around
6:27
that. And then this is how you do it.
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Also, keeping the offer streamlined.
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So often people think the more I add, the more time, the more
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that isn't how really high level buyers buy.
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They buy the outcome or the result.
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They don't really care how much time it takes you, you know,
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it's kind of like, do they want you to take 12 months or would
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they rather have it in two? I mean, and so it, it's really
6:50
understanding all of these pieces of the business and this
6:54
is your next level growth. Why work to get more and work
6:58
harder When you've developed this expertise and your, your
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skill set, your knowledge has evolved, it's time for you to
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step up and start working with better clients.
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That's one of your first and fastest scalable strategies is,
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you know, work smarter with your clients.
7:16
Right. So what I'm hearing you say is
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if I really think about the value that I add to a client,
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right, do I save them $1,000,000?
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Do I help them make another $1,000,000?
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Maybe more than I can charge? Basically some percentage of the
7:32
value I create? Yeah.
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I mean, if you think about it, and again, it depends on if it's
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revenue or if it's profit. Because if you think about, and
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here's a good example, if you think about $1,000,000 in
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revenue, they still probably had overhead.
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They might have had marketing cost, they had you, right.
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So there are expenses and costs that went into making that
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$1,000,000. That business is not going to
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keep $1,000,000. They might keep 200,000, right.
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And so your pricing has to be aligned.
8:02
But let's say you're helping them make $200,000 in profit,
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OK, you still could charge $100,000 for that.
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They're doubling their money. I mean, you can't get that in
8:14
the lottery or the stock market, right?
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And so it's really understanding that and and pricing
8:20
accordingly. There are things where you can
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do, you know by results, but when you are really excellent at
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what you do and you have levelled up as far as your skill
8:32
set and your knowledge, you don't need to be doing deals
8:36
anymore where you're only getting paid by back end
8:39
results. You should be getting premium
8:42
for your services and then add the back end percentage to the
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results and and that's how you can make a lot more money as
8:51
well. It sounds like such a more
8:53
powerful way to think about your business versus like I do
8:57
marketing or I do analytics or do operations or I do product
9:02
instead thinking about this is the value, literally the dollar
9:05
value that I drive to the business.
9:07
And however which way I do it. And right, like that is, and it
9:11
almost makes it, it makes it makes sense, right?
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I'm gonna charge 100 grand. That might sound like a fortune
9:16
to someone, but it's like, well if I'm driving 200K in profit I
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can charge half that. Exactly, exactly.
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But on the other side of that, you can't just go in and pitch
9:28
that kind of an offer. You have to be positioned well
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in the market. You have to understand how to
9:34
create that offer in a way that it's really easy to pitch to the
9:38
client and it should actually open the door.
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Here's another, just a very quick idea for people too, is to
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create what I call a strategic advisory offer.
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And this is where often you can see gaps and things within their
9:53
business that they cannot see. So one of the things I help
9:56
people do is go in as an advisor, as a strategist and a
10:01
lot of people give those services away.
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Stop that. That is one of your highest
10:05
values. So let's say you go in with a
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$50,000 basically an assessment or a strategic advisor offer.
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And then you uncover all of these other things like I hoped
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a client do that. She was making a few $1000 a
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month from her client. She said, I know that, you know,
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I see gaps in their business. I see things that would make
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what we're doing work better. And she said, but I don't really
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know how to how to create an offer to pitch that.
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And so we put together a strategic advisory offer.
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It was a really structured framework and offer.
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She went back what was 52,000 is kind of what we came up with on
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the front end. And I said, who would this, who
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would you know, that could use this?
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And she said, I already have a client that could use this.
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She went back to the client, she pitched the strategic advisory
10:56
offer to them, but then I showed her how to open up the back door
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to sell them even more. And literally they brought her
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on at a $413,000 contract. So it opened the door, I call it
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an expert gateway offer where it opens the door to those bigger
11:14
clients, those bigger opportunities, and then know how
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to sell on the back end where you can uncover other things.
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That's how you get really big deals.
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That's how you get multi 6 figure deals.
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As you talk, I'm just like the value of a coach, the value of
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someone sitting on your shoulder and saying go bigger.
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And tactically, this is how you do it.
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But look, we all have that fear, right?
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We all have the like, you know, we kind of want to play small
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because it's safe. It's just the default or for
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probably all of us, right? Like Michael Jordan had a coach.
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Every single person, no matter best in the world, doesn't
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matter. You need a coach that helps you.
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Hey, think bigger, right? Like is this time getting a
11:57
$413,000 deal without you? I I mean, I don't know.
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It was funny because, you know, I help people who want to add
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$1,000,000 or even more to their business.
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And so she said I never really, and she had a really good
12:09
business. She had a nice little agency and
12:11
was making good money and she had built A-Team.
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And, but you know, this was kind of a whole new, a whole new
12:16
revenue stream for her really that she could go out and rinse
12:19
and repeat. And even if people didn't, even
12:21
if they didn't open the door and hire her for more, she was, she
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could make $50,000 cash at a pop.
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So it was a rinse and repeat scalable offer for her.
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And so that's another way to look at things too.
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So even, I mean, would you be upset if you just went in and
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did an assessment, they paid you 50 grand, You did a road map for
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him and, and they took it and ran.
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I mean, most, most agencies wouldn't, right?
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But the interesting thing is she said, I never really thought
12:46
about making an extra $1,000,000 with this new revenue stream.
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But she said now at this level, that's like 2 clients, That's a
12:53
little over 2 clients. So now all of a sudden it really
12:56
expanded what she was already thinking about this particular
13:00
offer. The other thing is when you're
13:02
selling something very curated and streamlined like that, like
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it had a framework, it had a name, it had, you know, I call
13:09
it buckets. It was a very structured offer.
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She could literally have a sales team go out and sell that too
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and scale that way. So it wasn't just a matter of
13:18
her trying to get the client for that.
13:21
But when you're selling like your services, it makes it
13:25
really hard to bring on team. It makes it really hard, you
13:28
know, to to really scale at that level.
13:31
And so you want to structure your business again,
13:34
streamlining it so that you can build it and make a lot more
13:38
money doing less. And that's really how I work
13:41
with people. And it's just coming to mind,
13:44
too, the investment in getting the support you need as a
13:47
fractional, as a founder, as whoever it is.
13:50
Like, yeah, you could say, oh, I'm going to spend 30 grand on a
13:52
coach. Sounds like maybe a lot of
13:54
money. But if the 30 grand helps you
13:56
make 400 grand that you wouldn't need otherwise, it's like I'll
13:59
take that trade any day. It's charged her enough and I, I
14:04
will tell you this, I wasn't inexpensive, but then I looked
14:07
at the result that she got and I'm like, I could have charged
14:10
her so much more needs to. Do a better job with you.
14:13
Yeah, but but seriously, when I take on clients, you know, I, I
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look at where they're at and what their opportunity is.
14:20
And for the most part, to be really honest, I'm less than for
14:24
a lot of them, even one client. And so it just makes, it makes
14:28
total sense because they're also now getting their business
14:32
structured for growth, for sustainability.
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So I do a lot of things with them, not just offers.
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I help them build a sustainable brand.
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I help them stand out in the market in a category of one,
14:42
really get in the spotlight, all of those things that are going
14:46
to give them the growth and the clients and they the
14:49
opportunities that they want. So I just help them level
14:52
everything up and play a bigger game.
14:54
You know, if they have a mindset problem around that, they I
14:56
don't work with them. Somebody else, you know, can
14:58
work with them, but I work with people that are go getters, the
15:02
big thinkers, they want more, but they don't want to live
15:05
their business. They don't want to, you know,
15:07
burnout and a lot of fractionals won't scale.
15:10
I see this a lot with agency owners.
15:11
They stay very small because they've tried to scale and it
15:14
hasn't worked and it's just because they had missing pieces
15:18
and gaps in their business. Anyone can do it, it's just you
15:21
have to be willing to do the things that are necessary.
15:25
One of the things that is necessary that you mentioned
15:27
earlier in the conversation is being positioned well.
15:31
Yes. What does that mean?
15:33
It's really interesting, I was just on LinkedIn and I was
15:36
looking at a fractional CMO for example, and her brand looked
15:40
fairly nice and she had in her headline fractional CMO, but
15:44
then in her headline she had like 40 other things she did.
15:48
So I couldn't tell which direction she really would go.
15:52
Well, that dilutes your brand. And so when you are going to
15:55
establish yourself as an expert you, it needs to be crystal
15:59
clear in your brand what it is you do and who you help and how
16:04
you help. And most people try to put too
16:07
much stuff in there. Even like something as simple as
16:10
their LinkedIn headline, they put too much stuff in there and
16:14
nobody knows the direction that they're trying to go.
16:18
So if it doesn't seamlessly fit together, expert in you is my
16:22
brand. But it's also what I help people
16:24
do. I take experts and I help them
16:27
accelerate their success. So it's not a disconnect from my
16:31
brand or from what I do in the consulting side.
16:35
In fact, that's actually where it came from.
16:37
It came from my consulting business as I was helping them
16:40
do this. So it has to cohesively and
16:43
seamlessly fit in your brand if you are going to do multiple
16:49
things. And this is the piece that a lot
16:52
of people don't know how to do. They don't know how to bring in
16:55
all of those things. You don't have to cut those
16:57
things away. For example, she, you know, help
16:59
people, I think get Ted talks and, and, you know, build their
17:04
image and all that kind of thing is a fractional CMO.
17:07
But the way she had it structured and the the outside
17:10
perception, and that's what we're talking about with
17:12
positioning the outside perception would not have
17:16
matched the level of client that she really could be getting.
17:20
I'm actually going to go back to her and talk to her because I
17:23
see the potential there and the opportunity.
17:26
But I will just bet you she's getting low level clients and
17:30
she's doing it because of the way she looks on the outside and
17:34
and probably even the way she's offering her services.
17:37
I want to make sure everyone really captures this because
17:39
what you're saying is really important.
17:41
And I do think it's relatively difficult to actually grasp
17:45
Meaning I can do, let's say I'm a fractional, I can do all these
17:49
different things, let's say within the marketing realm.
17:52
But that doesn't mean I'm going to tell you everything I do on
17:57
my LinkedIn or website or in my pitch, right?
18:00
I'm going to pick a specific positioning that's going to
18:03
target, attract the right high value client so I can get these
18:06
big offers. And then once I'm in there, I
18:09
can do all these things. Yes.
18:11
So when you're structuring your offer, all of that brilliance
18:14
can come into your offer, but it comes in in a very simplified
18:19
way. So one of the ways I teach
18:21
clients is look, we're going to go with three or four buckets
18:24
here for your offer. You know, maybe 5 on the high
18:27
end, nothing more than five. Don't go more than five.
18:29
I don't even like to go that many.
18:31
Let's figure out the the three or four buckets, the main
18:35
buckets you're going to work in. Now, within each of those
18:37
buckets, you're going to probably have a lot of things
18:41
that you do, but what are the main things that people would
18:44
want to come to you for or want to buy from you?
18:47
And I say, and then it should all be in one offer, one way
18:51
that you're selling your services, it should be branded
18:54
to you. It should be in a category of 1.
18:57
You should name it even. And when you do all of this,
19:00
you're going to have something that nobody else has.
19:03
So now it's proprietary to you. It's a signature system.
19:07
Even though even if you're working with clients customized,
19:10
it doesn't matter, you can still do this and every bucket should
19:15
sell itself. It's not the easiest thing to do
19:18
for yourself, which is why I've been helping clients do this for
19:21
years, but every single piece of your offer should be something a
19:25
client would want. So if they want this, you
19:30
they'll come in for that. If they want, you know, the
19:32
second thing, they'll come in for that.
19:34
But when they look at the offer the way it's structured, I help
19:37
them do like a pyramid. So when they look at the offer,
19:40
they're like, I want that, I want that.
19:42
And you might end up doing all of it with them.
19:45
And that's where your sales process comes in.
19:47
But they might come in for one particular thing and then you
19:51
can talk about those 3 or 4 things in your content because
19:56
different pieces of your of your offer will pull in different
20:00
types of clients. But the positioning is one way.
20:04
Does that make sense? It can be a little confusing
20:07
because you know, I've been doing this for years, but for
20:10
people that haven't done this, it can be a bit confusing.
20:13
And I think it's actually counter intuitive because I want
20:16
to tell you on my LinkedIn all of the ways that I help you
20:20
because I can add so much value and I'm so multifacted, right?
20:23
Like it's the go to is let me tell you everything.
20:27
And what ends up happening is you get people coming to your
20:30
page are confused, they have no idea really.
20:32
And it doesn't really make sense.
20:34
And as you said, you probably attract if anybody low value
20:37
clients that you're probably trying to.
20:39
Well, your positioning cannot be strong like that.
20:42
And you know, even when I work with marketing agencies and they
20:45
have like this menu of stuff that they do, you know, like
20:49
pick from the menu and then we'll write a proposal.
20:52
And that's a very difficult way to build a business.
20:55
And often it keeps you in low fees instead of showing up like
20:58
the expert. This is our process.
21:00
This is what we do, this is what we deliver.
21:03
That makes it so much easier for people to see what they're
21:06
buying into. And they don't really care how
21:08
you do it with them that what comes into the sales process,
21:11
how you're going to deliver and how you're going to do that.
21:14
But what they're really buying into is your expertise that you
21:18
can deliver on the results or the outcome that you say you
21:21
can. That's what they're buying.
21:23
And all the rest of it is just stuff.
21:27
Yeah, I feel like we're summarizing Built to Sell, you
21:30
know, the the book. Have you read it?
21:32
Uh huh. Yeah.
21:33
Years ago. Oh gosh.
21:34
Years ago. Yeah.
21:35
I think it's such an amazing book.
21:37
It's so simple. It is.
21:39
It tells the story of this marketing agency owner who has
21:42
all these different offers across all these different
21:44
clients. He's customizing everything for
21:46
every client and he wants to sell the business and they
21:50
basically tell them the business is worthless.
21:51
It is. It absolutely is.
21:53
You haven't built anything sustainable.
21:55
Yeah. And I've still buy businesses,
21:57
so I can tell you what what sells and what doesn't.
22:01
Yeah. You're basically building a
22:02
turnkey process. And that's what I was saying.
22:05
You can't scale something that's all wrapped around you.
22:08
And nobody can go out and sell it for you or nobody would have
22:13
any idea how to sell it for you. I mean, for example, if you're
22:16
going out and selling websites and you're selling websites for
22:19
chiropractors, that's pretty easy.
22:21
You could hire a salesperson, they could hit all the
22:24
chiropractors and they could sell websites, right?
22:26
And now you can establish yourself as an expert doing
22:29
that. But when you're talking about a
22:30
fractional or you're talking about an actual agency where
22:33
they're doing multiple things, this is where they get stuck.
22:36
And it's just so crazy. So many of the clients that I've
22:40
worked with that the increases that they've been able to run
22:44
when we did this and how much simpler it made their business
22:47
because when they priced everything right now they they
22:50
can bring in team behind them. They don't have to do a lot of
22:53
the work themselves. Most fractional stay stuck in
22:57
the grind and you're going to burn out eventually.
23:00
Really your business is worthless for that.
23:03
So you are spot on with that. What gets in the way from the
23:08
fractional, the agency owners, from growing their business, the
23:12
focus you said streamlined, simplifying like what gets in
23:16
the way? Well, they get stuck in the
23:18
business bottleneck, so they can't really drive the revenue
23:22
or drive the business. That's the first problem.
23:25
That's why I love to help them start with better offers,
23:29
reposition themselves in the market, build up more powerful
23:33
brand, and now go after the hiring clients.
23:35
Because if you can bring in a client for three times more or
23:39
10 times more, you now have just increased your revenue three
23:44
times or 10 times, probably doing the same amount of work
23:48
you were already doing. So that's the first thing we
23:51
want to look at is what can we do to get you more money for the
23:55
same thing you're already doing? Let's just restructure things.
23:58
So that's the first thing. But then as you start to get
24:03
those things in place, you need to, I would say if you're
24:06
working more than 10 hours a week doing client work, you're
24:10
losing money in your business. Nobody's driving the business,
24:13
nobody's driving the revenue, which makes it not much of A
24:17
business, right? It makes it a job.
24:19
So when you can get paid more now you can start looking for
24:22
other people that can come in and help you do the work.
24:25
Or you can keep your business so streamlined that you you can
24:28
still stay very small and very boutique.
24:30
Like I said, maybe you can work with ten $100,000 clients, you
24:35
might be able to do that, right? But somebody still has to go
24:38
find those clients. Somebody still has to do the
24:41
marketing side of things and and build the brand and build that
24:44
sustainability. But I don't ever think you
24:46
should be the only one in your business doing everything
24:49
because it just what happens if you get sick, who's going to
24:53
take care of your clients? I mean, you just have to think
24:55
about the bigger picture. Or even go on vacation.
24:59
Or go on vacation. Yeah, who wants And again, who
25:01
wants to like literally live in their business.
25:04
The purpose of a business is to, you know, build more money, make
25:08
more money than you ever could make working for somebody else
25:11
and have more freedom. That is, you know, of course
25:13
you're going to have impact. And of course that all goes with
25:16
helping your clients and all of that kind of thing.
25:18
But why are you in business? You're in business because in
25:22
somewhere in your mind, you thought you could make more
25:24
money and you thought you could have more freedom.
25:27
But most people get in and they work 100 hours a week for
25:30
themselves, you know, and, and get paid little and they
25:33
wouldn't have ever done that for 40 hours a week for someone
25:36
else. So if you are in that kind of
25:39
category, your mindset needs to really level up and you need to
25:44
think differently because eventually either you'll exit in
25:48
some way or you'll burn out. Yeah, so I know you're not a
25:52
mindset coach, but I got. I do mindset work with people
25:56
though, you know, 35 years in business and hundreds of
25:59
clients. You can't not right?
26:00
Totally. So I was like, OK, what else
26:03
gets in the way? That was my previous question.
26:05
And I'm curious what you see most commonly in the mindset
26:09
arena that gets in the way and how do you support people with
26:13
that mindset challenge that you're about to share?
26:15
Yeah, I mean, let's take, you know, like imposter syndrome can
26:19
come up, right? I mean, we, we hear that word,
26:21
but kind of the buzzword out there all the time that can come
26:24
up. For example, somebody might be
26:26
sitting here thinking, can I could I really, you know, get a
26:29
half $1,000,000 client or could I really get $1,000,000 client?
26:34
The answer is I don't know until I talk to you and find out.
26:38
But what if you could and you're not doing that or you're not
26:42
even thinking like that. So when we talk about, instead
26:46
of saying can I, you might say how can I?
26:51
So one of the things I, I do with people is, you know, if you
26:55
want 6 figure clients, let's figure out how you can do that.
26:57
I mean, if you want to work with 10 clients and make $100,000,
27:01
let's put together the offer and the business model that's going
27:06
to help you do that. Now, of course you have to come
27:08
with expertise, right? Of course you know you can't do
27:10
this if you have nothing to offer.
27:12
But if you have value, you've had good results, you almost
27:16
always can do this. So I'll just tell you this,
27:18
Bradley, I've taken coaches from $1500 to closing $50,000 clients
27:24
that turned into over six figures.
27:26
So if I can help a $1500 mindset coach do that and you're in
27:30
there doing work for people and fractional work, I mean, you've
27:34
got gold there. So it really is just knowing how
27:37
to do it. So the first thing I want you to
27:39
think about is you probably can, but you're not doing it.
27:44
That's a shift in your mindset. The other thing that gets in the
27:47
way is just not knowing how and not finding someone that can
27:50
help you. I struggled with this when I
27:53
came into the consulting and coaching space.
27:55
I couldn't find someone that could take my years of building
27:59
businesses and selling and expertise and help me turn that
28:03
into an offer that I felt really aligned with with my clients
28:07
where I was getting paid the money I deserved because of the
28:10
results I was helping them get. And you know, now that's how
28:14
actually how I got into this because I couldn't find anybody
28:17
to help me. And I, I invested a lot of money
28:20
doing the wrong things. And people were helping me get
28:24
little clients and they were helping me like I was a startup,
28:27
like I had no real expertise. And it was so frustrating.
28:30
I almost left the business. And so, so the second piece of
28:36
it is, you know, you need somebody probably to help you do
28:41
this because it isn't your area of expertise.
28:43
And honestly, it's really hard to do for yourself.
28:46
And every time I've levelled up, I've struggled to do it for
28:50
myself too. So I've always had to find
28:52
another mentor or hire another mentor to get me to the next
28:56
level. So if you think like that, you
28:58
will go much further in your business.
29:01
Talk to me a little bit about systematizing automations using
29:05
technology. It's like, you know, you just
29:08
shared part of the reason you go into business is get your time
29:11
back, have flexibility. Obviously systems can help us do
29:14
that. From a practical perspective,
29:17
how can fractional small business owners use systems to
29:21
buy their time back? Oh, I think there's a lot of
29:23
things they can do to use systems to buy their time, but
29:27
it really comes down to where they're getting stuck, where the
29:31
bottleneck is what what are they spending the most time on?
29:35
One of the things I look at when I work with people and I help
29:38
them really redesign their business model so they can get
29:41
what they want is, you know, where are you spending the most
29:44
time? Can that be systematized?
29:47
For example, let's say for example, one of my clients, she
29:50
was going in and she saw gaps between the marketing and the
29:53
sales team. And she had experience in both
29:56
marketing and sales. So she saw these gaps.
29:59
So to, to create a new, a new way forward for them, she
30:03
interviewed the sales team and she asked them certain questions
30:07
and she interviewed the marketing team that literally
30:10
could have been systematized with her, with her, with her
30:13
next client. Once she realized the question
30:16
she she needed to ask, she could have systematized that and
30:20
anybody could have gone in and collected that information.
30:23
So that's an example of how things can be systematized.
30:28
But of course, you can use automated automation with
30:30
calendars. It just really comes down to
30:33
what it is you're doing in your business.
30:35
But I use tons of systems in automation and it it really has
30:39
to just align with what's going to give you freedom back.
30:42
People and and systems are where you're going to get freedom and
30:46
then obviously simplifying things.
30:48
One of the things I did is I I just started writing down what
30:51
are the all the manual stuff I do in the business every day.
30:55
Yeah, create SOP's, yeah. Yeah, and either SOP's for my VA
30:59
to do or a Zapier or NA-10 automation that would just take
31:05
care of it for me, right? And it took some time to set up,
31:07
but I got back dozens of hours as I read up one time and then
31:13
it just runs right. Yeah, that's the thing.
31:15
Once you do it once, the other thing that you have to think
31:18
about too, though, is you can't train people to come on to your
31:21
team again if you're still trying to do everything and you
31:24
haven't created any kind of systems.
31:26
So you think about systems. They're also a training tool for
31:30
anybody coming in behind you. If you're going to let go of it,
31:34
letting go of control. So you were asking about, you
31:37
know, the mindset thing, letting go of control and nobody can do
31:40
it as good as me, right? That's not true.
31:43
I'm telling you that is that is a myth and a lie.
31:47
In fact, a lot of times, if that is somebody's focus and they're
31:50
not so distracted, like you are wearing multiple hats, they will
31:54
do a better job than you trying to do so many, so many different
31:59
things. But you've got to create that
32:01
system for them so they know exactly how to do things how you
32:06
want things done. It's almost like cloning
32:08
yourself. If you think about like when
32:09
you're creating a system to replace yourself, you're kind of
32:14
creating that system to clone yourself.
32:16
And then what you will find a lot of times is your team
32:19
actually can bring to the table ideas or things that you didn't
32:23
even think about. And they'll make it even more
32:25
efficient or even better if you hire the right people.
32:28
Last question and then we'll we'll.
32:30
Wrap up here in a minute, but one of the things that you talk
32:32
about is collaborating with other experts, right?
32:36
All about growing your reach, partnerships, complementary
32:38
services. How do you do that?
32:40
How does one do that? Yes.
32:43
So this is. Another place where you really
32:46
need to establish your expertise and really get that positioning
32:50
strong so that you get yeses with people.
32:53
If you look like you're, you know, not very credible and
32:58
everything looks a bit used car, not the Lamborghini, right?
33:03
People are going to respond to the Lamborghini, They're not
33:07
going to respond to the cheap used car.
33:09
So your brand, your positioning, everything has to really be
33:14
leveled up when you're going more premium and you're looking
33:16
for better partnerships and people that can give you more
33:19
business opportunities, doors to open.
33:22
All of those things come from really that again, the
33:26
positioning, the outside perception of what people see.
33:29
But this is where as a owner founder, you need to be leveling
33:33
that up and you need to become the person driving the revenue,
33:38
building the relationships. Now, yes, you can hire
33:41
salespeople down the road when you build to such a level.
33:45
But when you're, let's say not quite in your first million or
33:49
your first 3,000,000, you're going to be the face of your
33:52
business. I mean, you can't necessarily
33:55
pawn that off to people and get the same the same traction.
33:59
I should say you're still going to stay low end if you're trying
34:03
to do that. So if you.
34:04
So again, what I'm talking about is elevating everything your
34:07
clients, your referral partners, opportunities, all of those
34:11
things. And that comes with having a
34:13
strong brand, strong positioning, knowing what you're
34:16
doing, looking like the expert again, all those things we've
34:19
already talked about. And if you were to leave the.
34:21
Audience with one thing today. 1 tip Piece of advice.
34:25
What would it be? I would say.
34:27
Really look at scaling. Don't stay stuck in a job for
34:33
yourself. You will burn out, you will not
34:36
last and you don't have anybody doing business development for
34:40
you probably if you're in that place, which means you're on the
34:43
up and down revenue roller coaster and that's a really
34:46
stressful hustle and grind kind of business to run.
34:49
So I want to encourage you to think bigger.
34:51
You got into business be a business like you didn't get
34:55
into, you know, business to be a, you know, have a job.
34:58
I hope you didn't. There's a difference in wanting
35:01
income and building a business. If you think like I want to
35:05
build a business, you'll make different decisions, you'll take
35:09
different actions. You will just do things
35:11
differently. If you think about income, good
35:14
luck. You're going to stay on the the
35:16
hustle bus and if someone wants to work.
35:18
With you or is interested in chatting with you to see if it's
35:21
a fit? How would how would someone find
35:23
you? Yes, you can go to.
35:25
My website, which is Anne elkharton.com and you can book a
35:30
call. There's places on there to book
35:31
a call. I also have my expert in you.com
35:34
agency book a call there. But if you want consulting, go
35:38
to my my personal website and book a call with me and look,
35:43
I'll get on the phone with you. You know, there's an application
35:46
and you'll fill it out. It will tell me more about your
35:48
business. I'll get on the phone with you
35:50
and you'll get value from the call.
35:52
If it's a fit for us to do something together, we'll talk
35:55
about how to move forward. But I'll look at, you know, you
35:58
know what you could be doing right there on the phone.
36:00
So awesome. Yeah, we'll put it the link in
36:02
the. Show notes as well.
36:04
And thank you so much for being here today.
36:06
And I think it's such a such a valuable topic to to really help
36:10
someone up level their business and kind of get out of the
36:13
revenue roller coaster as you talk about and earn a lot more
36:15
money in a simpler way. So thank you so much.
36:18
You're welcome. I'm on a mission.
36:19
Help business owners build wealth.
36:21
So Yep, you are welcome.