Latest / Your Girl: The High Ticket Sales Podcast | Scale Your Business & Get More Clients / Why You’re Overworked & Underpaid in Your Business

Transcript

Why You’re Overworked & Underpaid in Your Business · Your Girl: The High Ticket Sales Podcast | Scale Your Business & Get More Clients

• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever looked at your calendar and your workload and thought, I swear to God, based off how much I'm working, I should be making X amount of money.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, I should be a millionaire at this point.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: But why am I not?
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm working so hard.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: And if I hear one more person tell me I should get more clients, I'm gonna scream.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, hate to tell you, but you're at capacity.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: And you really need to hear this episode.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Hey y'all, welcome to Your Girl, the podcast for six to seven figure coaches who are ready to scale their business and hit their dream numbers.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Marie, the founder of Your Girl Media, at a boutique agency, mainly around podcasting and also an incredible networking group I created called Cocktails and Clothes, helping people like you scale to your dream numbers.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: And today we have a really special episode because we actually have my coach on Michelle, who I met at a business conference this year.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: And we met because I asked a question to the crowd, and everyone kept giving me really fluffy answers to my question.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: And she pulled me over aside while we were getting coffee and she just hit me with some business truth and told me what I actually really needed to hear.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: And ever since then, I've just hooked on Michelle and it's like, what's your program?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: How do I get into it?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: How do I get access to you?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: So this is an episode I wish I could pin at the top of this podcast where everyone had to listen because we're all scaling.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: If you're listening to this episode, you are scaling your business.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you are probably at capacity and at burnout, and you're getting all the wrong advice on the internet.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: So enough of me.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about how to get out of burnout and to stretch your capacity and actually hit those three numbers you actually want in.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get into the episode.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna start with everyone's favorite question.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: What is your name?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: What is your business and your favorite cocktail?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, I want to guess your cocktail.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Just say your name and your business for right now.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say.
• 2:32
  unknown: Yeah.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my name is Michelle Denial.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: I am a business growth strategist and profit strategist, and my company is Michelle Denial Consulting.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: I What are you gonna guess?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: You are such a fucking wild card.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Every time me and Laura talk about this, every time we think we peg you for like, oh, she likes this, you like the opposite.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, for instance, I would have no idea.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: I just would never think you'd like country music.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: My first instinct is that you are an old-fashioned, you like classic, like a classic drink.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: But then I'm like, no, we have to go the opposite of that.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna say your favorite drink is like something kind of trendy, like sex on the beach or something.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh no, no, no, no.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I got it really fucking wrong.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I you know, it's interesting.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've been thinking about this, and I don't know that my drink is really a cocktail, but I like if my business were a cocktail or a drink, I would have gone with a red wine because it's bold, it's dark, it's kind of like it's not really a party drink.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not big on party, right?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm kind of like sit in the back, have a nice deep conversation.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's that's kind of my vibe.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I love to sit.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like to me, that's what a glass of red wine is.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's just that like it's super bold, it's bitey, but it's also like deep.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know that no, that makes a lot of sense.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Also, the truth comes out over wine, like that's true, the tears, the the like the laughs, like everything you can't hide anything, like if you have a bottle of wine, like it's gonna come out.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like that's definitely I mean you're a business coach, and you definitely pull it out of people.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's as that's such a good answer.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: I love some nice, good, bold, dark, dark.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's gotta be bold and it's gotta be dark.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like just be like a fruity red wine, it's gotta be like a dark, dark you know, Franzia over here.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: We want like Italian Merlot.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: So my next question is what I feel like you have a lot of these actually, but what is your coaching advice that would get you dragged on the internet?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh god.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think I have a lot of um, I think I have a lot of bold claims or things that I feel very strongly about.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know if I would get dragged on the internet, but like my big thing is like the people that are making all the money that they say they're making are probably not making near as much money as they say they're making, right?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just think like there's so much shitty advice out there about and bold revenue claims that are like I would literally challenge a lot of them.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't really care.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I want to see, show me, show me how much money you made.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, prove it to me.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: That would be like the thing that would really probably get me dragged on the internet is like, yeah, prove it.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, show me the facts around that because there's so much bullshit around it.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and like I I think we were talking about this another time, but like, what's your profit?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like, okay, you can make a hundred K a month, but then you pay your team, I don't know, like 50.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: So then you make 50k a month, you know?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think it's from from threads, like, yeah, people are claiming like crazy ass numbers on there.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's big numbers, right?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's what people say, you know, that's what people want to hear.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's what people supposedly are buying into.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: But let me just say this too like people are only buying into revenue claims in the online business space or on social media.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, when's the last time you went to your your local coffee shop?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're in Europe traveling all around.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: When's the last time you've done business with anybody in Europe because they said they made a certain amount of money?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Don't do that.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: You don't.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: You go, you give you go to the coffee shop because they remember your name, they they remember who you are.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: They, you know what I mean?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because you want to support them.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're not because they make the best cup of coffee or they've got the best scone or whatever it is.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like you go to your hairdresser because somebody referred them.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: You don't give a fuck how much money they're making.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that is such an it's an online social media thing only.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it is not a standard way of doing business, like at all.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I remember talking to a mentor of mine and I was talking to him about money, and he was like, Michelle, the only person I talk money to is my wife, who happens to also be my CFO.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and or you know, he's like, nobody else, that's nobody's business.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this man is hella fucking successful.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: You would never know how much money he makes, and people are not doing business with him because of that.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I need to take that lesson and run with that.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Cause I feel like it's been on the internet a lot, and I feel like I all I do is talk about money recently.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm in Europe and I'm getting a little bit of a clap back.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like they're like, whoa, like you're just saying like lots of numbers right now.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, yeah, I want to talk about it.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, Okay.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, it's not normal, like, it's not a normal conversation.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's not widely accepted.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Let me say that.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's not widely accepted across other industries or in other countries, it's not a widely accepted practice.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah, that's so fucking true.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: But today's podcast is a lot about numbers.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of our listeners, I'm gonna put myself in this box, are pretty exhausted.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're like hitting X amount a month, like the amount of work on their fucking plate, you'd think they'd be making 100k a month, but they're not.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: And people are like, well, just get more clients, just get more clients.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like there's this weird bottleneck happening.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so I want to talk to that listener.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: What's the difference between being busy and being at capacity?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so really the thing about it is is capacity is your ability to serve and make money, right?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, there's only so much capacity.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: We only have so depending on it, doesn't matter what business you're in.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a solo provider, right?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you are a sole provider and you are a single owner business, then your capacity is literally your time.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you have maybe a team, again, your capacity looks a little bit different, but it's like your team's capacity, how many clients can they honestly take on?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it really looks at like how many clients can you take on in the number of hours that you have available and still serve them well.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: That is the big thing.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that you can't take on more clients, but it's about where at what point does service start to deteriorate because you are working over capacity.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you start working over capacity, that's when things start falling through the cracks.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's when your customer service starts to decline, that's where mistakes start to happen because you're in this constant state of churn, churn, churn, churn, churn, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, right?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got to understand like your capacity because we all have a capacity.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: You can't outrun your capacity, you can't outsell your capacity.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: You literally, there's only so many fucking hours in a day.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: So every single business has a capacity.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And when you know what your capacity is, then you can build your offers and your clientele and everything around that so that you can still scale.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think people look at capacity as like this ceiling, and it's not, it's just a here's what we are operating within.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now we have to get really super strategic in how we work with this capacity to get to the numbers that we're trying to hit, whether that's revenue, whether that's profit, whether that's how much you want to pay yourself.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't really matter.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: But then there's also the other side of just being busy.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: 90% of what I would say is people that are busy are over capacity.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: They're literally working over capacity.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: They know that they can only take on five, but they need that extra money.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: They want that extra money, they're chasing that next big revenue number.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so they take on seven clients and now they're balls to the wall fucking busy.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, now you're over capacity.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: And again, can you do it?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can for a while, but you can't live in that state forever.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, oh, yeah.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's somebody my neighbor, she's like a really successful podcaster.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, she says she works like two, three hours a day.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: She's making bank.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: She's making bank.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: And she just like she's not at capacity.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I've got two different days.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: She's she went to the park today, she had coffee, she had two euphoric breakdowns.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like, she had time to cry at the park and have like a real nice mental health moment.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: And meanwhile, I have been at my desk since 7:30 a.m.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't gone to the gym.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: I had to delay our meeting today because I couldn't need a break.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: I actually had this revelation before we got on this call.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm at capacity.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Two business owners having one conversation, and one person had such a cool fun day.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm like, when do I eat?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's you know, that looks at, you know, because of the way you have your clients set up, because of how much you're trying to do, because of what you're over-delivering, like there's a little bit of probably over-delivering, right?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so capacity, if you start coming up against that capacity or where you feel like you're really working a ton of hours, that looks like there's probably somewhere in your offer where you underestimated the amount of time or the value or the skill that you're bringing to the table.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's how you get to that capacity point where you're feeling like, well, what the hell?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm busy, I'm book solid.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: I literally don't have time to eat or go to the gym.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: But why am I not breaking through to this next revenue?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I not bringing home more profit?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: So is the next step to figure out because you said you have to shape everything around your capacity.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's not where people start at all.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: They start at pricing.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: They start at pricing, and they're like, I have a customer.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: They make a number out of the sky, is what they do.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I should charge you a thousand dollars.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: What about the people like me and people listening who are like, Well, fuck, I I've I've operated this all wrong.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm at capacity.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Do how do I untangle this web that I've created?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the first one first step is always just to figure out what that company is, right?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's first and foremost, is you have to figure out where you're starting from, right?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: How many hours do you actually want to work?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: How many hours do you have available?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, like your neighbor who only wants to work two hours a day or whatever, okay, fine.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: She's she's built her life and business around two hours a day.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: I personally am kind of like a 10 to four Monday through Thursday kind of girl.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's like five hours-ish a day because I do try to get up, take luckily I have a dog.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: The dog forces me to take a break, right?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: So now you're looking at 20 hours a week.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: So that means that you've got to look at and say, okay, I only have 20 hours a week, 80 hours a month.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: What do I need to do?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: And how do I shape my offers?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: So first and foremost, now we know we know what we're working with, right?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: We know we've only got 20 hours a week to work with, which is actually more than enough time.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: I do want to make a point here to say that you literally can make and bring home 15, 20, 30k months in 20 hours a week.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: 20 hours a week is more than enough time to get to the place that you want to be.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to be very mindful and strategic about it.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think people think they have to work 40 hours a week.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, you don't.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, even I can't even remember, even when I had a job, how many weeks in my job I actually worked a full 40.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like 90% of the time, you know, because you sit, you have coffee, you go meet somebody in the kitchen, right?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we don't.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, okay, 20 hours a week is a very reasonable amount of time to work.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, granted, there's always like those conversations that happen before and after hours where you're, you know, whatever.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: But you want to make sure that you're starting from that place of 20 hours.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: So now we've got to work that.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: So first, now you've got your capacity, you know what that looks like.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now you've got to look at your offers, okay, and understand and be realistic about how many hours you put in to each individual offer.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: I do highly, I know a lot of people love one-to-one, and I know a lot of people think that one-to-many is scalable.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: You and I have had this conversation multiple times.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: One to many is only scalable if you have an audience ready and waiting to scale with you.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: So most people start at one-to-one.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens is they build their one-to-one packages so freaking full that they are so committed to each person individually that you literally probably cap out at four or five clients.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because the offer wasn't created with the capacity in mind.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it also comes down to like again, why do we?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: I guess it will overdelivery.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure there's some underlying themes of imposter syndrome, people pleasing that like that's a huge part of it.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like you hire me to edit your podcast, but suddenly I'm also doing your socials, and it's like, wait, what?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like you didn't, you're not gonna say no, like you're okay with it.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna say stop doing the extra work.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think that there's a side of that, but I also think there's just sometimes a side of we just don't know, right?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we don't know who's teaching this, truly, aside from me, who's teaching this?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for the most part, right?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Most people are teaching, like, here's what the industry is doing, here's what your competitors are doing, right?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so people are creating offers and packages based on what they see out in other areas.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: They see what other people are doing.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: They're not ever looking at it from a place of what do I want?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I, because a lot of the the conversation out there is like go to your audience, do market research, find out what they find out what they really want and build your offers around that.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I kind of approach from the different aspect of like, what are your goals?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: How do you best serve?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: How much time do you have?
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: How do you want to serve?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then we build offers around that because at the end of the day, there's an audience out there for everybody.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's literally an audience out there for everybody, and anybody can, and we can prove this.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: I can prove it.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: You can go to each individual person, and their audience is going to be different.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: The way they do business with people is different, right?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: They all work.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: So if every strategy works, why are we not building our entire offer world that I'm calling it around how we want to grow and scale our business and then put it out and find the people that want to build in the way that we want to do it?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I'm just taking that in.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's so true.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you talk about like your this would be like your north star, right?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Is that or that is that just its own separate thing?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: I view the north star as the direction that we're going, right?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like what is the what is the motivating factor for why we're doing said thing, right?
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think everybody's North Star is different.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Some people are motivated by a an outcome-based North Star, right?
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it if I'm doing this, the outcome is I get to move to California.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: The outcome is I get to fire XYZ number of clients.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: The outcome is I get to take my family on vacation.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Some people are more motivated by the action, right?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like if I have four calls a month, I know that I will hit my goals, right?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, but for me, like the North Star is very personal, but it's one of those things of like, if I say yes to this, is this getting me closer to moving to California or is this moving me further apart?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: If it's moving you away from moving to California, then it's a no, right?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's why to me, the North Star is not so much about revenue numbers, number of clients.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't really matter.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Some people are motivated by that, but I want it to be something that is so motivating that it the answer is either a hell yes or a hell no.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's no in between.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we take things on that put us over capacity that are not exactly bringing in the revenue, right?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're so quick to say yes to something because it's like, oh, it's money coming in.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: No, is this, but just because it's money coming in, is it money coming in that has a direct expense associated with it?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Is it money coming in that's going to take me a ton of time?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, remember, we're only operating with 20 hours a week.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: So money coming in is only as good as your capacity to serve.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I always say.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if you don't have the capacity to serve, right?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, an example, I'll give a tangible example because I think this can be kind of hard, like a hard concept for people to take in, right?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I have my group program, which is the focus visionary accelerator, right?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: That is built.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: I spend a lot of time in that program, but I spend the same amount of time in that program whether I get five new clients or 10 new clients, right?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's a group program, it doesn't include any one-to-one.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's really no added capacity.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: The only added capacity that is as that grows, I am definitely going to have to add another call time because I can't get to 10 or 12 people in one hour.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: I just can't.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something that's very important to me.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: I want everybody to make sure they get their question answered on those calls.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: So again, as I grow it, I am going to have to add another time slot for it, which is going to go against my capacity, right?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: So there is that level of it.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: However, I can also scale my business by adding on what I did is added on a one-to-one offer that is all done asynchronously.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: So like Voxer style or Telegram or something of that, because A, it's in the moment, right?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: People love that asynchronous coaching.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: B, I can do it whenever.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be available.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: You can set very clear parameters around this where I can say I literally only answer between the hours of 10 and 4.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And C, it's not putting anything on my calendar, right?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because my calendar is where my capacity really hits that point.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I can take on six new asynchronous synchronous clients.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas if I were taking on one-to-one clients that required a meeting every single week, I can only take on about two of those a month because I don't have the room in my calendar for more than that.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: So like that's where I'm looking at like building those offers and really looking at and getting creative with your strategy of ways that like you can work within your capacity.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: So one-to-money is not the only answer.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think one-to-one asynchronous style coaching is a great answer.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: I just bought into a 30-day audio only program.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: So it's literally just a private podcast where you're getting a daily dump, right?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: So like there's so many different ways that you can increase profit and revenue in your business without going over capacity.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens is people just think that they have to create these offers that require so much of their time.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where they start to hit those revenue plateaus.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's where they start to feel like, oh my gosh, I'm working so freaking hard and I'm just not making the money I want to make.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: So what if someone's like, oh shit, I think another prop part of this is not just time, but I'm undercharging.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how do you mentally go to that next step of like the undercharging?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Let's let's say they're charging$2,000 for their coaching program and they need to be charging about five.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's like a big jump.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how do you mentally go move into that?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I would look at is there a way with the$2,000 program, is there a way to eliminate time and labor against it?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: So is there a way instead of like let's say you've got a coaching program and you're offering one call every single week, plus there's a training, plus there's this, whatever, whatever, you know, could you go to every other week, right?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Could you move instead of so maybe you're not increasing the price, but you're just decreasing.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: So you only have one call every other week instead of one call every single week.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And on the off weeks, you're doing some type of asynchronous coaching, right?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Which is probably less than an hour that you're gonna talk to people, right?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: And most people don't need a call every single week because most people aren't working a full five days.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so really a call every single week is actually counterintuitive because how much can they actually get done every single week?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's kind of that's one area I would look at.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: The next area I would look at is if you do want to raise your prices, um, again, is there a way to go up a little bit incrementally and again cut down the labor, cut down?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: the expense associated with it?
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Is there something that can be outsourced to maybe a team member where you're not the person responsible for all of it?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: So if it's, you know, sending people documentation, if it's getting guest experts lineup, whatever, is that something somebody else can do, which again, now opens up your capacity to take on a higher paying client, whatever that looks like.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: So there's just, there's so many different ways that you can work within it.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: It just all requires like some strategic reflection and really seeing where you're at.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: I love how it's not just like, well, just raise it and fuck around and find out.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, wait, no, let's strip down, let's take stuff out first before and then if I think that's the easiest one because at the end of the day, if you raise your price and you're still booked out, right?
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, great.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: So you you you had you're at capacity because you can only take on three one-to-one clients at$2,000 a month.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, great.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now you raise it up to$5,000.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Fine.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: You've increased your revenue but and you've probably increased your profit a little bit, but you're still at capacity because it's the same work, right?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same amount of work.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't change anything to reduce hours to free up your time so that you could go to the park so you stood so yeah okay great now you're making$15,000 instead of six but you still don't have time to fucking use it.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: You still don't have time to do anything with it because it's the same you're still tied to the same amount of work.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: So raising prices looks good on paper but if somebody is looking for openness and spaciousness in their life to be able to go and enjoy, right?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah you make$15,000 but you're still booked to the wall now you still can't go on that vacation you still can't you know what I mean like that doesn't necessarily always help.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes most of the time it needs to be and this is truly the definition of scaling is increasing revenue decreasing time and expense that's how you scale because the bigger the difference the more the profit is the more time you have available that's the true definition of scaling but in the online space people just think scaling means increasing revenue and it's not yeah that only solves half the problem I didn't I talk about scaling all the time this whole this whole freaking podcast and I didn't even realize like that's actually what scaling is it's not just making more money more money more money more you know no scaling is making more money and reducing hours wow I say most people are really in a growth mode they're not ready to scale because scaling truly requires a completely different business model for the most part.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Huh and but you can grow exponentially right there's a huge opportunity for growth and you can increase your profit and take home pay exponentially in growth and then once you have that secured then you scale that's when you start adding quantity scale is usually a quantity game at that point.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay let's say like I'm back to that coach I charge$2,000 okay maybe I'm not gonna charge$5000 right now but I do need to strip back on what I'm doing for my current clients can you do that like I mean so you can do anything in business but like how would you have that conversation where like hey Michelle I realize I've been doing way too fucking much for$2,000 like you have that conversation what I would do is well ideally you have a contract that expires or some point right so you're not gonna if you're on a six month contract you're not gonna you're not going to just change it mid-contract you can't that's where contracts protect you a little bit in that and that's where contracts also give you the out because when a contract expires you have the ability to renegotiate it okay and you make that choice of like okay I've got to renegotiate this contract I've got to renegotiate my scope of work and so you have the ability to do that.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you're kind of in this month to month there isn't like a heavy contract situation, you can go back into your clients.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I I never want to do anything out of integrity.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Integrity means the most to me so I always am somebody that sticks to my word.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now if costs have increased etc and you're to a point where you're not making any money like it is your job as the CEO to do those things to look at the client and say listen I really need to renegotiate this.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: I want to keep so we've got a couple of choices here.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: I can continue doing all the things that I'm doing but I need to raise your price or we can keep the price the same but here's what we would reduce out of this package.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where you can kind of have that open conversation and this is where working and be building relationships is going to play a big role in that because if you've got the relationship built and they are a solid business owner they're going to see the they're gonna see and understand that like I had to do that with some OG clients I have of mine I try not to raise the price if they're on OG like I try really hard but like my costs have gone up like I cannot sustainably continue to support them at the cost that they are paying.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had to raise the price but what I did is instead of making it a six month payment plan, I made it a nine month payment plan.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: So the price increased but their payment every month stayed about the same but it just extended out a little bit longer.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: So there's ways that you can work that too.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay I love that um so this is something that you called me out on recently and my friend Laura about like chasing a new strategy like don't break what's not wait what's don't break what's working don't fix what's not broken.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it is yeah um so I want to talk about that like for someone who's like I just feel like there should be more that I could be doing or oh I have this new idea like talk to that person who's just they're always thinking of like a new fucking idea when the fix what's not broken is again keeping your capacity in mind right if you truly want to scale you don't add more right and that a lot of times is what I see happen.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's like oh okay things are going really well I'm going to add more to or in order to justify this price increase.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: However, like I just said you add you increase your price but you increase your expenses against it.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: So now you're literally making the exact same amount of money you just have more on your plate and you're now again over capacity likely.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: So the true definition of scaling is like no everything is going well things are really great.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: I have proof of concept I can raise the price a little bit to cover but we don't change anything.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: So now revenue increases nothing else changes you now immediately just increase your profitability.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what you're really looking at profitability allows you to pay yourself more it allows you to reinvest into your business at a higher level it allows you to really grow it allows you to delegate and hire out again now you delegate now you've got a cost associated so again it's really looking at there's always room for adaptation I've been changing my business a lot this year but I'm changing it from a place of um trying to create accessibility inside of my world right that's why I'm calling it more of my offer world but if you noticed like I'm not changed I have not changed a single thing with the focus visionary accelerator because it works.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: The only thing I did is this year I added in some resident experts um but that was a change I made and then that's it I'm not adding anything else because if I want that to scale I need to keep doing what's already working there's nothing broken about it.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's going well people are getting results people are happy with it right like there's no it it might feel boring.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is what happens is we get bored because we're on the end of it right because we've been doing this for six eight 12 months to a year but the new client coming in has not right and they're happy with it they're getting results from it.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's what they want they're they want the results so we don't need to change anything and add more to their plate again because every change adds more to your plate it adds more to their plate and that's likely most of the time not what what any of us want because we're all at capacity.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah I want to talk about the person who's like bored in their business though because I can think of I've had a couple conversations with people who are struggling with this like okay their business works like it works they're making good money but they're fucking bored.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: So now they're like trying to pivot and they're trying to deconstruct and it makes you wonder like yeah because what do you do?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because now you're kind of just working a job.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I think it really depends on where's the boredom coming from I actually just recorded a podcast episode about this myself because it's like okay we are going to we are going to hit a place in our business where things feel boring.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I get that way too especially if you're neurodivergent ADHD because we love to chase the dopamine hit right like okay I'm bored now what?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm bored now what right like what does that look like but this is where you can create little pop-up offers.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is where you can change something up and maybe you run a sprint inside of something so like I'm thinking about I have my private podcast and I was thinking about like well maybe what if I did like a 14 day pay yourself more challenge but it's just part of my private podcast.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing new it's just it's changed up instead of it being twice a week now for 14 days I'm gonna do this little series where I'm gonna give you a tip every single day on how to pay yourself more.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's fun, right?
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's it changes but it's not like breaking the whole mold of everything right and a lot of times that's really all it is it's it's like something small needs to change.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: It could also be that you've outgrown the people that you're currently working with.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that I think when you've outgrown people that are still at a level that you've already moved past even though you're working with them that creates boredom right because it creates stagnation you're like I'm moving I'm growing I'm doing the thing but I also want to see people moving.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to see people just sitting and they're stuck when people are sitting that's when I start getting bored right so sometimes it could just be that you need new blood right again it could just be like instead of going and breaking everything down you can re-energize a business by simply just getting some new blood in it.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah yeah wow that's really freaking good answer.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay talk about your price for pricing for profit workshop that you're that you do I think you did one in my membership because I do want to talk about pricing and how people price based off what they feel.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: So like if you can talk a little bit about pricing for profit instead of feelings.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: So pricing for profit looks at really looking at your business through the lens of how much money do I want to make, what are my expenses associated with this?
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: How much do I need to pay the government and then also taking into consideration how many hours per week do I want to work right at my capacity.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I have a calculator and I'm happy to share it with anybody if you want to just shoot me a DM or I can give Marie the link and we'll put it in the show notes.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: But essentially you put in your revenue dollar amount.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Again, now I think people shoot for a revenue number that is a number they pulled out of the clear blue sky I would highly recommend you actually take into consideration what it does it cost for you to run your business.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: What are your expenses put that all in and really look at what are your what are your costs for doing life, right?
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like your car payment, your mortgage your rent, whatever like really get super specific with it so that you can see because I think a lot of people chase 10K months well if you start adding it all up for the most part 10K is not enough for people to sustainably live on if they are the sole breadwinner.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I know a lot of business owners are trying to do that right like they don't want to rely on another income.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so we've got to get super super serious about what do I actually need to sustain myself to sustain my current um way of life and to sustain my business.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Then I want you once you have those numbers then you add in okay well what do I want it to actually look like right do I want to put$2000 into a savings account every single month?
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: Do I want to have a thousand dollars a month in my business savings account for investing whenever I need it or if my computer breaks down or whatever the fuck, right?
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: So get those two numbers and then that's where you come up with right your your revenue number or like the number that you need to make.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then you're gonna add on about 30% for taxes.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say you got to make$15,000 a month to sustain your business and the lifestyle that you want to live.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: $15,000 now we've got to add on because we got to pay the government because revenue coming in you're gonna have to pay the government right you you can't avoid the tax bill.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: So you add another about 30% onto that so now you're up to what like another$4500 I think I can't do math in my head today.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: What's 30% of$15,000 it's like yeah$4500 right so now we're at$20.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the number we work off when we price our offers we work off of 20,000.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're not working off 15 because$15 is what we want to bring home 15 is what we need to take pay ourselves we're working now off 2000.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now you got to look at how many hours you have available to work.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we talked about this 20 hours now there's two ways that you could really price this all 20 of those hours are not revenue generating hours right because we have admin we have podcast recording we have whatever you're doing your networking that's not all direct revenue generating so you may want to take that into consideration you can do this two ways.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now this is like literally getting super nitty gritty here.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just say 20 hours okay so now you want to make$20,000 and you want to do it in 20 hours a week and also you want to take six weeks of vacation off because we're not working every single week that's how you do the calculation from there.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I actually happen to have the um calculator here open because I was doing this for somebody else um so if you're saying$20,000 a month that's a hundred and or two hundred and forty thousand right per year at six weeks of vacation 20 hours a week your personal hourly rate then comes up to about$250 an hour.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: So and that's not a time per dollar trait and that doesn't include all the money that you've invested into your business all the money you've invested into your skill all the years of experience you have that is just saying that's giving you a number that says if you spend five hours with a client in order for it to be profitable and cover your expenses you need to be pricing this at approximately$250 per hour right so now you can come up with pricing that is actually accurate to covering your expenses and making sure that you have money at the end of it to take home.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've got$250 an hour times a five hour a project your minimum minimum rate is twelve hundred and fifty dollars again that might be low.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: You may charge four thousand you may charge two thousand for it okay great because now we're adding in the value we're adding in all of our time and experience we're adding in all of our investments right you want to know but what I see a lot of times is somebody be like oh I'm gonna run this offer for 997 and then they wonder why they're not making or hitting their goals because you you're at capacity and you're undercharging.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I just so that goal was exactly my goal and I'm I'm undercharging like a lot so yeah okay wow and and what I'm hearing this whole episode is like you're working fucking backwards while the rest of us are just shooting arrows and seeing where things land and hoping for the best but then looking at our Pinterest board and being like yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna get rich or I'm gonna hit this goal and we're just like living in like a bit of a confusion lala land and it's like if we just work backwards you can probably figure out the map you can yeah you absolutely can because you have to know where you're going right like imagine getting in your car and just deciding that you want to get to California but you never tell the GPS that you want to get to California.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: You just tell it you want to go west how the hell is the GPS ever going to get you there if it doesn't know your destination it can't right but this is what we do with the as a business all the time we get in the car and we just start fucking driving.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: We have no idea where we're going we kind of have an idea you know you could tell the GPS I want to go west okay great it might land you in Seattle that's not where you wanted to go right it could land you in North California when you want to be in San Diego right like you have to have a destination in order to get there.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot just get in your car and start driving and expect to get there.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: You might eventually get there but you're gonna get there and it's gonna cost you a ton of time it's gonna cost you a ton of money and you're probably gonna get frustrated and pissed off at some point because you're literally spinning your wheels because there's a couple times you're probably gonna go in a circle and end up at the same place, right?
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what happens and I know that analogy I used to use this analogy all the time in business of like treat your business like a cross country road trip.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: You would not just get in your car and start driving if you wanted to go across the country you would plan it out.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: You would say I want to go from Florida to California and in order to do that I can't do that in 24 hours.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: I only want to drive six hours a day so you would tell your GPS to give you a destination six hours from your starting point.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't just drive right but that's what happens that's essentially what people are doing in their business.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so all I'm doing is helping people define that destination so that we can then create the strategy to get them there in the fastest and most profitable route possible.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my God.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: So good this is like probably one of my favorite podcast episodes I feel like this is just so needed.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like I feel like this is just breath of fresh air before we go into cocktail hour is there anything you want to promote right now that's really important well FEA is always evergreen.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: So FEA is always the the thing to do which is my signature program it's the focus visionary accelerator that is my full strategic offering everything you get I consider that like one-to-one coaching in a group format right you get access to my framework for those people that love to have like a framework to latch on to you have access to my brain whenever you need it in WhatsApp so that for those people that are um just more of like hey I'm in this situation I need help now there's group calls for people like I feel like what I tried to create in FEA was everything that I would have wanted as a business owner when I was growing and scaling you know what I mean because I think everybody learns differently everybody processes information differently and so my goal in creating FEA was to be able to serve everybody regardless of how they learn.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: So if they are more of like I want to sit and watch videos and do this on my own because that's how I learn great go through the framework.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to just verbally process it out great show up to the call and let's verbally process it out.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you're kind of introverted and you like to just be on the go and hide behind your keyboard great hide behind your keyboard and shoot me a WhatsApp, right?
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's the way I feel about that.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: But the whole goal of FBA is to give you a plan to get to your destination in the most strategic and profitable way possible.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah and I mean I'm in the membership but before I even tell people about it like do you have like a certain client of yours that comes to mind that we have pretty big success story from FBA?
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I do have um there's one client in there who came to me a couple of years ago she's actually getting ready to renew for her she'll be this will be her second year moving into her third year with it.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: And when we started working together she was very very much living in a friend zone.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: She would get a client she was making some money not great she was making money but it was very up and down right and she was getting friend zoned all the time she was having all these conversations everybody loved her and nobody was paying her but reality was is that she didn't have a reason for people to pay her.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: She was giving nobody a reason to pay her and so when we really looked at her business model we found all of these little holes where literally people were leaking out of it simply because she was letting them right like it wasn't intentional but it was happening.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: And anyways filled all the holes took the action she knew what her North Star was and I think last year she increased her revenue 900% wow and I believe that and I think um if there's a person out there who like really would work really well with you is that because you are like facts are facts business is business as you like to say and like if you are more of like an emotional business person or you like are less yeah like strictly strategy I feel like it's the perfect match for you because it's like I like I like being an FBA because I like working with you because you're like the fucking no nonsense like tennis coach.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's like you're gonna run fucking five miles until you you know do this thing.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like I feel like I I need a no nonsense business is business coach and and I think sense why her profit increase that much because like there was just logistically problems.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like yeah exactly I mean you can bring all the emotion you want like I'm a very emotional person too right and I get all of that and there is a time and place for emotion in business.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah but when it comes to growth we have to remove our ourselves because if we don't remove ourselves, the stories will overtake.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the stories are often lies.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: They are oftentimes situations where it's like, I think this is what is happening, or my brain told me that I didn't do this well enough.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: But in reality, the facts are literally just maybe you didn't talk to enough people, right?
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you're trying to fill a group program and with 10 people and you only have 20 people in your in your audience, well then that's like you didn't do anything wrong.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: The program's not broken.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: You just didn't have enough people to convert, right?
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's what I mean by facts.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I also look at it through the lens of the emotional side point from the emotional side of what does it look like and feel like for you?
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because if something doesn't feel good, you're not going to keep doing it.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so there is times when I push but there's also times when I look at somebody and say like I think you were on a call a couple of weeks ago where somebody came and this was a conversation that we had had multiple times and I finally looked at her and said when are you going to admit that you're just not going to do this?
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like and that's okay.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: And stop feeling guilty about it.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: Stop feeling shame around it and just admit that you don't want to fucking do it.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like there are things in our business we just don't want to do.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the that's the balance that I try to create inside of that program of being able to look at it and say okay there's certain times we need to push but there's also times where we really just need to check in with ourselves.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what I love about FEA is like as we learned when I was when I joined is like I am so burnt out like I can't take any more information in because my job as a podcast producer I I listen to business podcasts all day.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: I have I that capacity is my fucking brain.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I can only have interactions.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I like your calls.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: I love your calls and I love um what I'm paying you for though is I'm paying for that I I have a direct question.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: I need Michelle's answer.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: And like that moves my business more than watching a module because I think I'm going to combust if I take in more information.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: I like that I like about yours is it's really flexible and it's there's no pressure.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: So if there's someone listening who's burnt out in a certain way but needs coaching I feel like that's what I I think there's just so many different ways they can get help from you and converted like two or three people to come over work with you.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because I was like you just need fucking Michelle like stop fucking around and get and talk to Michelle.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: We met at Bestie's boardroom which was like conference and I remember someone I asked a question and I got a really fluffy answer and you were just like no this is what you what can you hear?
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like yeah because most people do give fluffy answers and then people wonder why they're still stuck and that is what I don't do.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like I I have a very hard time so even if you're listening to this podcast and you're like holy shit Michelle that was so much fucking information.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: It is a lot of information to take in all at once but it's really not that much when you break it down right like when you break it down into these incremental steps it's very simple to look at and it's literally the things that simplify your business.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds complex.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: The only reason it sounds complex is because nobody's fucking talking about it.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's having this conversation on the internet.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's talking about how you can just launch a one-to-many offer how your audience is just going to magically grow through content right like that's what people are used to hearing.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: But in reality all of this work that I am teaching simplifies your business to a point of where it's like yeah go go to the park because you already did your money making activities for today because we know exactly what moves the needle and what doesn't so those things are done.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: Go enjoy the rest of your day period I feel like I don't know how to force this episode on everyone but I wish there was like a way you can I wish there's like a mandatory listen.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: I like I wish like when you like found a podcast it was like cool you can listen to the rest but this is a mandatory like I feel like it yeah because I feel like they should be able to like pin like pin an episode to the top or something right that's fucking good.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like Spotify should listen to that.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: But uh yeah because I feel like everyone listening to this this has probably been the problem all of these all of this stuff that you've been talking about has probably been the problem they just no one's been talking about it.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: So they're just like ah I just keep if I hear raise your prices one more time or if I hear you know you need a better content strategy I'm going to combust you know so like this was so good.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: I do want to jump into cocktail hour though.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: How do you want people to connect with you?
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then yes I can drop either like the pricing sheet below or if you rather have people DM you that's fine too.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah absolutely just um connect with me on Instagram for sure.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you want more of my hot takes uh go listen to my podcast it's called the real truth about business.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then if you want me in your ears even more there's a private podcast as well called Back Pocket Insights which are those riffy like voice note style um episodes those are super short and sweet and that's completely free.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah I will make sure that Marie's got all of the links and then if you want the pricing calculator um send me a DM just because I don't have it set up to where it's like I can just share it like publicly but I'm happy to send you the link once you um and it it's literally a free tool it's got a loom video attached to it so it'll show you exactly how to use it.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: But it will it'll help it's use it as education use it as facts use it as a starting point.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_01: So you are also in my membership Cocktails and clothes which if you don't know it's a high impact networking group for female founders and essentially if you're a fucking hype girl and you also want to find other clients be around VIP experts it's a great place to be so anyways Michelle you are in the membership.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: My question would be yeah what do you fucking think?
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: Do you is it worth the investment of your time energy all that jazz oh yeah yeah cocktails and clothes here's the thing I want you to really hear what I'm saying about cocktails and clothes is that it is not stuffy surface level networking.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of the things that I love about it is that it is that deep connection right like we talked about at the beginning of this episode like I go into cocktails and clothes literally visually thinking like I got my glass of red wine in my hand I'm gonna go sit with my girls and I'm going to have really deep conversations.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we're talking life and other times we're talking business.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day like it's it's your people right like it's those people that you feel like yeah let's get let's get together and you know they always have your back and that is but it's a wonderful blend of like business is happening and we know this because we all respect each other as business owners but we also just respect each other as humans.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that to me is what I look for in a community and what so many communities are lacking because most communities are one or the other.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: Most communities do not do well with both.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that is something that I think you have done an excellent job with inside of cocktails and clothes.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_00: So yes I 100% I told my entire email list last week that they should join in it um because I do think I think this is what people are needing.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's what people are craving and yeah we're doing business because we're business owners and nobody's afraid to talk about that but it's not the only reason people are there.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah I think it's actually like deep relationship building like I don't know how I don't know how but I've attracted really magical people in there.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's a really cheesy word but like it's a it's your energy because yeah but you that's your energy right your they always say your vibe attract or your vibe attracts your tribe right that I mean it sounds kind of cliche but it's true like you attract a certain vibe of people and people want to be in your space.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah so if you want to hang out with Michelle in general and come to all the events with us uh yeah get in there but okay now it's actual do actually do cocktail hours my favorite I'm gonna start off hot I feel like we both can we both can answer this question but what would your what would your let's say get employees or your clients what would your employees or clients say is your most annoying founder habit well um well probably the fact that I can't stay focused on anything like even though I teach all of my clients to stay focused my ADHD brain is so freaking all over the place um and it is a little crazy but I'm very good at doing that for other people when I was in when I worked in an office they all called me like a nag like they're like oh my god here comes Michelle again she's gonna nag us and there is a level of that like I can be an incredibly good nag to get things done persistent that's the word I feel like my annoying founder habit I think I'm like organized but disorganized.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I think it's just 80 day people that's 100% yeah so I was that's pretty like I'm not a systems person.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not an automations person and I've had people look Laura when I lived with Laura she would watch me work and she's like what the fuck are you doing?
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_01: She was like how why did you take five steps to do one thing?
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's an actually really bad habit of mine.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like an old grandma if I like Google Sheets don't fucking sell me on Notion or click up I like what I like I like Google Sheets.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: I same I'm I'm the same way I won't like I won't adapt to faster automations or faster things.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: I know it'll save me time but I'm like it's new and I'm and I'm an old school grandma.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like so I would that's probably actually where it's habit is that like everyone's trying to figure out how to adapt and automate and I'm like how do I still use Google Sheets?
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah like yeah I think that there's a time and a place for all of it honestly right there's a there's a way to adapt but there's also a way to again don't fix what's not broken.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's not broken so don't fix it so so simple and I we love Google Sheets.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_01: Okay so my other question is what's your non-negotiable in your week as a CEO Fridays off Fridays off.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean I even when I force myself to work like I just can't my brain just does it is a very I so programmed for me I have not worked Fridays pretty much the whole entire time I've been a business owner in nine years and I can work and bang stuff out on a Saturday morning but don't try to get me to do it on Friday.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's just because like I'm on calls and my brain is functioning at such a high pace for Monday through Thursday that like on Friday I just don't there's nothing want to work.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't want to work and my brain is like yeah we're not doing that.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_00: We're just not doing it and so I honestly I just don't most of the time I very rarely will schedule anything on a Friday because I know it's not gonna be my best work.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_00: So why do it?
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah that's that's that's very true.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_01: I used to take off Fridays my first three years in business I was really good at it.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I think ever since I've been quote scaling and changing my business like I I haven't the capacity problem actually that's exactly why yeah um but I used to love my long weekends.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my God like love love love.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um okay this is actually not a question I have on my sheet but like I just feel like you're such a wild card.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me something that we don't fucking know about you.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_00: I I just feel like you're such a wild card to me oh god I don't know what don't you know about me everything um gosh I don't I feel I'm kind of boring did you know I mean I spent I was a hairdresser my my goal in life was to own a spa in New York City like that was my big dream um I went to hair school I loved the beauty industry um I would have stayed in the beauty industry my whole life if I could have but I had a shoulder injury that kind of took me out and so now I'm actually trying to work my way back into the beauty industry through like business and consulting and profiting uh you know profit strategy and whatnot.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah my big goal in life was to be a spa owner on a day spa.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_01: Wait what kind of spa like what was the vibe?
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_00: Was it like dark and moody or was it like light and like what was this what was your dream it um it was more like high end but like relaxing you know what I mean like very comfortable um high quality but like super comfy like where you wanted to be there you wanted to hang out it felt very it felt like your favorite place like I love that I just I loved I loved the aspect of just being able to pour into people I bet you just make them feel good.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_01: I would love if you were a hairdresser if like we just would like yap yap yap yap yap like about you're just changing lives while also changing your hair making them be beautiful like and just probably see I loved it the difference it's like someone coming in their hair is a raggedy tired they don't feel great and then like them walk out and they're like oh my god I feel amazing.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I used to love to do pedicures too like pedicures were my favorite like I gave the best pedicure yeah what see that's what I'm saying like what the that's just not what I thought I'd hear you can you say today yeah oh yeah I used to be like almost fully booked just with pedicures alone how do you sit how do you sit like that for all day I always wonder I'm always like yo backs yeah I mean in general in general the the beauty industry is very tough on the body I mean I had you know it took my shoulder out the blow drying and all of that um honestly if I would have gone back to it after my first surgery I would have probably gone back and just got my barber license because again like first and foremost like men are so frigging loyal and second you can make so much more money because there's literally no overhead.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah because think about it you're you know you're spending maybe like my husband goes and pays and gets his hair cut he try he the guy charges him I think 20 bucks I could cut it but I just don't but it's like literally 20 bucks and he gives him a five or seven dollar tip probably I think he gives him like five dollar tip and he's maybe in his chair 10 minutes.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_00: So you can turn and burn five clients in an hour again talking profitability I've always thought this way of like okay now I just made a hundred dollars an hour versus somebody you who's got boatloads of freaking hair that wants a color that wants a blow dry now you've got at least two hours you've got costs associated with it and your time and so you're making about the same amount of money wow and and you only see a female every six to eight weeks where men most of the time are coming every three to four.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_00: So you're actually turning and churning more money over time and they're loyal as hell.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god men are so loyal wow yeah I've always wanted to go to a barber shop because I want to have whiskey like I'm a big whiskey girl and I'm like bummed that we don't get that offered that at the hair salon yeah you get wine usually or per second or some type of bubbly but yeah but like I know give me the hard shit like I want to go where the guys go because I know it's like exactly that's what I mean it's just so fun.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah like I the barbershop is such a vibe.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you have a barbershop I'd be so sick.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no my shoulder uh unfortunately would not allow for that but I would love to like manage a barbershop that would be fun um I guess my last question for you is what is your current life motto right now my current life model and always life model we talked about this actually on cocktails and clothes at one of our calls was um and I have it tattooed on my side there you go there's another thing you didn't know is um trust in the day believe in the future like that is my true motto I think so many people live for the future and I live for the present I've seen too many people live with the future in mind and the future is not always promised.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that sounds negative but it's like I want to live my life right here right now I can't control what the future is going to bring I can control what's happening right now.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so I trust you know trust in the day and believe in the future I believe in the future but I live for the day.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh God I'm such a future person.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_01: I need that I'm like so future oriented all the time.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like well again that's that's societal right we've been programmed to do that but like I don't know like my the reason that we're in Florida that we moved from upstate New York to Florida was because we had a friend at 29 years old get diagnosed with lymphoma and die five months later and it rocked our freaking world of like here is a man who literally lived his entire life every single day planning for the future planning for this life they were going to have eventually and that life never came.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like why you know why are we why aren't we just living in it now so like that's when we literally uprooted our lives we quit our jobs we sold our house we left our families and we moved to Florida because it was like we knew we wanted to live in Florida eventually but it's like maybe it never comes like why not just go down there and live now and go sit on the beach now like why does it have to be something that is a future goal why can't it be a now goal and so we made it a now we made it a like let's just go live in it and we'll figure it out.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_01: Wow I love that I absolutely loved this episode of Michelle I even I told her on the call it's like this is one of my favorite episodes I feel like I personally needed to hear this um even just like what she was just saying right there like stop living in the future and go do what you want now because it's not guaranteed that we have it tomorrow.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_01: So like you have to get metaphysical or philosophical but what are you putting off in the future that like if you died tomorrow you'd be really upset you didn't get to like maybe move that date a little bit closer.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that comes back to like right with the whole capacity thing.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like I feel like if we're all stretched so thin we can't actually like live the life that we want.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_01: So actually figuring out how to not be at capacity of business is the most crucial thing.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_01: Not even just like making more money but like how do you make sure you get to live life and you're not just drowning at work because hello that's how we created these businesses.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_01: So speaking of as I'm recording this I'm in the south of France and I'm looking at a view that people would just oh my gosh drool over I'm looking at like the vineyards and the lavender fields and there's birds and bugs all around and I'm not working this week even though sure there's lots of work to do but I'm not gonna let this at capacity thing stop me live stop me living life.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I also got it handed to me at one of my business calls this week with Michelle as she always does because I pay her to do this and I really realize what needs to change in my business and it's gonna be some hard confronting things that I need to do but I am definitely at capacity in my business.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I this this podcast itself really opened my eyes and then actually just working with Michelle has really been good for me and I think what's really going to be driving my business in the right direction.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're interested in working with her I would at least listen to her podcast.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'll put it in the show notes check her out.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_01: She's also in my community of a community called Cocktails and Clothes.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's a fucking vibe it's like half literally half the people we've heard on this podcast, I would say 90% are in that community.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_01: So if you actually want to just hang out with Michelle there in there too you can.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_01: We uh have 11 spots now if you're like following this on Instagram.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_01: We have 11 spots now where the price is still$77 a month for your first year.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_01: After that it jumps to$150 a month.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_01: We are also closing the doors no more free trials.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_01: You can't come try out the community after these 11 spots go.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_01: And we will be going on a wait list and I'm not sure when we will be opening the doors again because this community is super intimate and I don't want it to be some of those big big communities that some people are in where like you're just a number and everyone you talk to is also just a number and it's very transactional.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's a really really tight knit community.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_01: So if you still want to come try it, you still have an opportunity as this podcast comes out, come try it out.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_01: After that we are closing the doors and the price definitely jumps and Michelle's in there so you can actually get to meet her in that capacity too.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_01: So um I hope this was helpful for you.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go jump in the pool and get off my laptop.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I hope you do the same and go live in the moment.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_01: And as always you're bad bitched.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_01: I will see you next time