Latest / The Unfiltered Tea with Evie / How to Pivot, Build Recurring Revenue and Stop Going It Alone with Jo and Lyndon

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How to Pivot, Build Recurring Revenue and Stop Going It Alone with Jo and Lyndon · The Unfiltered Tea with Evie

• Evie Tavares: Welcome to the Unfiltered Tea. I'm sitting here with Joanne Linden, who are an incredible duo that I've known probably from very early on in my business, and I've learned a ton from you two. So I'm so excited to have you both here. Jo & Lyndon: Well, thank you for having us. It does feel like it's been a minute. I'm not really sure when it is that we first connected, but I feel like you've just been in our orbit for as long as I can remember. So we're excited you asked us to come on the podcast. Thank you. Evie Tavares: Yeah, for sure. It's funny how like sometimes the online relationships you're like, I don't know how this started, but I'm happy it did. So I'm excited to dive in with you both. I want to start kind of with your story, both like individually and then how you kind of came together because you're like a husband and wife coaching duo. I want to learn about how that came to be. But I want to start kind of at the beginning. Jo, you've talked about that you started your first business at 11. Well, I don't want to Jo & Lyndon: For real though. Mm-hmm. Evie Tavares: I want you to take me back to that and what you were actually doing and how it kind of started this whole entrepreneur journey for you. Jo & Lyndon: Yeah, so ⁓ the vision happened on the car ride home from school, as one can imagine at 11 years old. I'm sure many of your listeners remember American Girl. So I don't know if they still have a magazine, but back in the day, they had a magazine and I got my hands on an issue and I was reading about this other girl who was 13 who had started a magazine for young Jewish girls because she came from a Jewish family, didn't have any magazines for that she could see herself in. And so she saw a need, created it, and I thought that was just the coolest thing in the world. And what really jumped out at me was she's not that much older than me, and if she can do it, I can do it. And so from there, I just started dreaming about what I wanted the different categories to be. I loved magazines at the time, so I was familiar with some of the standard categories like beauty and the advice column and the editor, know, letter from the editor. ⁓ I started playing around with Microsoft Publisher, if anyone remembers that. It was the original Canva. I was on there as often as I could. It's funny, we have a niece and nephew and they love farm games. for like farm video games, that's their thing they're excited about. For me, it was Microsoft Publisher. Any chance I could hop on the computer and be playing around with design and what I wanted the pages to be like was a fun time for me. The other piece that I look back on and I'm like, wow, I really was an entrepreneur at heart is I had... I wanted it to be a business. I was all gung-ho. And so one of the first things I did was ask my parents for all of the addresses for all of their friends so I could send a letter requesting for donations and telling them, this is my vision for the business. I'm starting this magazine. It's called Best Friends Forever. This is who it's for. And this is what I need. I want monetary donations or I'm looking for submissions for these different categories. and I got them. People actually mailed in submissions for articles and things they found interesting, recipes, whatever it was. And I got my first $20 donation and I locked it away in my cedar box lock and key. And I was so proud of it. So that was my first business venture and I haven't looked back since. Evie Tavares: That's amazing. I love that. I don't think I've ever heard that full story before. That's amazing. Jo & Lyndon: Thank you. I haven't shared it in a while, and I'm not even sure if I've shared all of the pieces in that way. So that was a fun question. Evie Tavares: There we go. Yeah. And what about you, Lynden? So you have a corporate background, masters in business, correct? So how did that, how did this all kind of start for you? Jo & Lyndon: So I think, like, the easy example is, yes, I also had businesses as a child, but I think the thing that, like, for me was the tipping point of, ⁓ this makes sense in the entrepreneurial space for me is when I was in grad school doing my MBA, I went to Indiana University and they had this program called GloBase where it's basically global and social business enterprise where they connect MBA students with international small businesses effectively. And so like, they're tying in the like spring break trip with how do you work with the business? So you spend like the first seven weeks of a semester virtually working with this business, and then you spend five days on the ground, like working with the business, and then you have like three days of touring, because of course you're going to another place. And so when I was in grad school, I went to Thailand to work with Hammett Company. And it was, he was actually... an alum of the same school we were at, but like he was a transplant. He lived over there and he was making hammocks with local seamstresses where he was able to pay them much higher than the local living wage by just working with international customers for like these very well-made hammocks. And going through that experience of we have this knowledge. This is how you put together like a good business plan. This is how you do marketing. This is how you actually manage your finances so that it's a profitable company. that was really interesting to me because I could see how quickly we were having an impact on his company and his livelihood and the impact he was having on the world. And I went from that experience to working in corporate where I was many steps removed from a real customer and it just didn't feel the same to me. And I would still like Moonlight with Joelle on projects. And I was like, ⁓ this, her customers are so much better than mine. And why am I doing this when I enjoy that so much better? And that was a big thing for me of like, ended up lasting in Big Pharma for about 12 months, almost to the day. And I left because I liked working there better and I left as soon as that would support me. Evie Tavares: And so, like I mentioned, you're working together now in business. How did that actually come to be? Was it always the plan or was it just like one of those conversations that happened and it's like, ⁓ we can actually do this. Jo & Lyndon: It's so funny because Lyndon, at that point in the story, when he was in grad school, and honestly, even before we got married, he started out second shooting for weddings that I would do at the time. And then I went full time when we were engaged with the business and he played the role of a business advisor. I always called him my secret weapon behind the scenes. ⁓ He brought so much value that a lot of people didn't see in the foreground. And I was constantly you know, getting his thoughts on whatever it was. How should I approach this certain circumstance that popped up? Or what do you think about this idea? And he would bring so much to the table that I wasn't getting otherwise. And it was just really helpful. And so he's been there from the beginning. However, when we took the leap to go full time together, it was interesting because we, we always said up until that point, we were like, well, maybe one day we could see each other working together, but we're just not ready yet. And so it was always this often the horizon type of thing that we didn't really fully plan on. And then we were living in Chicago at the time. Lyndon was working at a pharmaceutical company for a bit. This was all during the pandemic and he shares his side of the story really well. But from my side, it was interesting because I had gone to work with another couple who had recently started working in business together. And it was the first time I was able to actually see what it could be like. And I came home and we both flew to see another couple who had just started working together in business. And that was another example for both of us to see, ⁓ okay, so this is something we really like. This is something we would do differently. And on that one trip, We had so many conversations and started to really seriously think about what it could be like for us to work together. We came home, we went to the whiteboard and we mapped it all out. What do we need? What do we want in order to feel confident in taking this leap together? London started to come into the foreground a little bit more so that we could kind of get our audience familiar with him, test out what it would be like for him to be more front facing. And six months later, he left his job and It's been almost five years now of working together. I don't think it was even six months. Yeah, it was much quicker than we expected it to be. Evie Tavares: That's interesting. And did you ever feel like protective a little bit of like, I've built this thing, like this is me. And then you're like bringing in, cause you have very different ⁓ approaches. Like Joe, you're very creative. Lyndon, you're very right. Is it right brain, left brain, right brain? Jo & Lyndon: ⁓ for sure. Yes. You know, even I have to check myself on it. think he's left brain, which I Linden left brain. analytical systems, processes, frameworks. Yeah. I'm right brain creative. Evie Tavares: Okay. Yeah, so two very different approaches and outlooks, really. Did you feel kind of protective when it first started becoming a thing? Jo & Lyndon: Yeah, I mean, I think with any type of transition, you're gonna have a grief period. And it took me, I wanna say probably a full year before I realized that I never fully grieved being the one leader of the company and then starting to share it. And so you're always gonna have some type of grief period when you're transitioning into something new, whether it's working with a partner or in a different venture, whatever it is, right? So there's always gonna be that for sure. ⁓ But what I will say is Lyndon is so supportive and what we found was that as long as we were on the same page, we were forced to be reckoned with. And in the beginning, it took us a minute to figure out that we actually were on the same page because sometimes we would, things can get lost in translation no matter how long you've been married, no longer, no matter how great communicators you are, right? And so we would have different things that we would say and the other person would think it meant one thing when actually we were saying the same thing just in two different ways. And so we learned we had to start asking each other for clarification. You know, when you said this, is this what you meant? No, I actually meant it this way. ⁓ okay. That's what I had in mind too. Great. Now we're on the same page. And once we learned how to have those conversations in business, we were able to work on things a lot quicker, a lot more solidified together. So yes, there was definitely a transition period for both of us, honestly, and for our audience too. That's very natural. But I think the fact that we were willing to have those conversations and continue to dig deeper on what was actually happening and how we could understand each other even more, that made a huge difference. Evie Tavares: ⁓ And how did it feel kind of coming into it, Lyndon, from like the other stuff, the other perspective, how did you feel coming into something that Joe had already built or started building? Jo & Lyndon: I think about it in phases, honestly, like very structured brain. ⁓ For one, my first week, we were traveling, we were putting on a workshop, we were working with like two one-on-one clients. I don't recommend that. Like maybe have an onboarding week if you're bringing someone on, maybe don't jump straight into things. ⁓ I think that first phase. I would probably say is like the honeymoon phase. Like you're figuring out how things fit together. Like what is the, like you can plan as much as you want, but until you are working together, sometimes you won't know how the chips fall. And I think that there was like an experimentation period. Like we had talked about roles, we had talked about responsibilities, but then you kind of have to like test it out and then have like a plan like. Actual time to reevaluate like did the roles we talked about actually make sense do we need to iterate on these and I think one of the biggest things was like when we when I first came in we had talked about roles, but It was very new for Joel to have a different decision maker in the business because she'd have had contractors before but everything stopped at her eventually for the first six and a half years of her business and adding another decision maker meant sometimes there was dual decisions that were made and when we disagreed, there's a difference there. And I think long-term it's figuring out who owns what makes it a lot easier to, if there's an owner on something, then it's just different sides of the business, which we have definitely grown into a lot more now where it's just you have deferred ownership. and you don't have to nitpick because you just know it's not your area. Evie Tavares: Mm hmm. And I like that you mentioned the experimentation because that's like with anything in business, right? Like nothing's going to make you dry. You're going to try things and you're going to figure out this works, this doesn't. And yeah. Jo & Lyndon: Yes. always. And it's, definitely something we do now. Like if, if we come up with a new idea or we launch a new offer, like there is a little bit of experimentation of like, we're building this, who really owns the deliverables here and how do we split this out? And we do it once. And then it's like, Ooh, I think I want you to do that part and I don't need to be involved. And the more we can decouple, the quicker we can move actually, which is very confusing when it's like, ⁓ you guys work together. So you do everything together. And the less things we do together, then we actually have two people that are doing things and we can move faster. Evie Tavares: Mm hmm. I love that. Okay, so we've talked about this a little bit already. You describe yourselves as like the left brain and the right brain. So the best of both worlds. In practice, if you have a coaching client who comes to you really stuck, who usually spots the real problem first and how do you kind of build on that as a team? Or is it kind of like depending on what the problem is? Jo & Lyndon: It's so funny. Right, that's where I was gonna go is it really depends on what the problem is because you can be stuck in so many different areas, right? And I think we take turns on it the approach is different. So maybe that might Help to the approach the thing that is actually really interesting is I think we take completely different approaches But most of the time we end in the same place which it it's just like a line of questioning of Evie Tavares: Mm. Jo & Lyndon: I'm hearing you say these words. I want to double down on these things. She wants to double down on those things. And somehow both of our lines of questioning, no matter who's leading it, will tend to get to the same place because we've worked with a lot of the same clients. And so we have a pretty good feeling pretty fast. It's just one is a structure. One is a conversation and yeah, Lyndon tends to, well, we both tend to follow. follow up with questions, trying to dig deeper on it. Lynden tends to want the big picture. Where are you going? What are you working towards? And then how do we come back to where you are to get to that point? Right. I love the mindset. I'm going to call out if I see a reframe there that needs to happen, or you just shared something that is not actually true, but you've formed a belief in it. Let's, let's dig into that real quick before we keep going, because that does affect everything. So. We'll play to our strengths. Then of course there's always some marketing ideas thrown in there just for fun because we can't help ourselves. that tends to be the process. think there's also like sometimes we can see each other as like, this is your area of expertise and I'll defer this to you because I know that you can talk to these Evie Tavares: Yeah. Yeah. Jo & Lyndon: like feelings or problem much better than I can. And it's kind of like a step back of, for the next like five or 10 minutes of this coaching conversation, I know that you're gonna be driving because we collectively know that you're better at this than I am. Evie Tavares: And just from my point of view, like I've been in your community in the break room and like seeing both of those sides flow together is like the coolest thing. Like I've seen you Joe kind of like push back on the mindset a little bit and like the creative side. then, ⁓ Lyndon, one of my favorite things that you do is when somebody's well, I think you both do it, but when somebody asks a question, but they're kind of like rambling and then you say, can you put a question mark at the end? Jo & Lyndon: Thank you. Yes. Evie Tavares: is I think that's something that even when I'm asking questions sometimes you might even notice in this podcast, I might do it a couple of times. It's like sometimes you're like almost asking the wrong thing and like what's the real question here? Jo & Lyndon: Mm-hmm. I think at least from like a coaching point of view, like half of the work for a lot of conversations is if someone can actually define a question for themselves, they now oftentimes can solve it for themselves as well. They just needed someone else to point out, hey, you're a little bit lost. And once you know where you want to go, you can actually map that out yourself. And we're just here to guide you. Evie Tavares: Yeah, for sure. I've definitely seen that happen. So I love that. ⁓ So you work specifically with creatives and you've talked about how creatives don't necessarily need more inspiration. We've got a ton of that and that they actually need a strategy that sticks. So where do you think that disconnect comes from? Jo & Lyndon: you I think you're a good one to take this one because you've you're kind of on both sides here. So I like to think about this as. You can view when I was in grad school, I took a one of my courses was on how to do executive coaching and they broke down for us. Like there's different types of coaches. Like you can have think about it's like a voice coach. If you're a singer, they may not be a great singer, but they know how to tell you how to be a good singer. because there is a structure to it. Like this could also be like a first base coach. This could be a defensive coach. Like they're not the professional, but they know the skills to do it. Executive coaching is, I don't actually know the right way of doing it, but I know the form of questions to ask to help you get there. And then there's like a teacher or advisor type where it's, will tell you the answers based on you give me all the pieces and I will tell you what to do. And it's interesting of like how you shift between those as you think about being a business coach because for a lot of things, creative started a business because they are actually really creative. They're good at things. But that doesn't mean they're good at running a business or that doesn't mean they're good at making money. That doesn't necessarily mean that they actually enjoy those things. And if I think about it from like an advisor point of view, oftentimes we'll have a coaching client that is chasing 50 different ideas at once. And sometimes it's just like, maybe we can just put these in order so that you can still do them all. But if we help you like prioritize, you can now be a successful business owner and now still do all those things. And so like, that's the advisor role. The like executive coach type is we're gonna help you think through what this looks like to actually merge something you really enjoy with. like something that is actually going to support you and the life you wanna build, because sometimes you're not connecting the dots of I'm chasing this thing and this is what my goals are and there's not really a connecting line there. And so that's a line of questioning. And then sometimes it's just like the ⁓ performance coach is this is how you should think about a launch strategy. Like there's some pretty standard ones that we can just help you apply. And so I think from a creative point of view, like, Oftentimes it's just organizing people's ideas and you play a different hat. You put on a different hat depending on the type of conversation. think the other component here is it comes down to understanding the individual that you're coaching. So a lot of our clients have ADHD or their moms with kids running around who are absolutely adorable and they have full busy lives, right? Also, they have so many things happening. They're going to forget to do whatever it is that you put on their homework, right? And so we have a very deep understanding of our clients and how their minds work and their behaviors so that we can best coach them through it. And for some of our clients who have ADHD, we're going to follow up with them a little bit more than other clients who have systems in process, processes in place to like... set them up for that, right? So every client is different. And when you are willing to understand the human behind the business, that helps so much when it comes to making things stick for them. Evie Tavares: Yeah, that's so true. I love that. I love like the approach. Yeah, you did. 100%. Yeah. I love like the tailored approach. ⁓ Recurring revenue is another one of your big things that you talk about and that you help people with. So again, with the creative entrepreneurs, why do you, do you find that they kind of resist building recurring revenue as creative entrepreneurs? Jo & Lyndon: Did we answer your question? OK. You It's, I think it goes both ways. It's funny because we hear two things. One, I want to have more passive income, which that's a whole other soapbox we could get on. And two, if we will bring up the idea of a retainer package, in some cases there is a lot of resistance because you're afraid that it's going to just not be a great fit or people have one specific idea in mind of what a retainer package means. And that doesn't fit their vision for what would work for them. when in reality there's many ways you could approach it and also recurring revenue is more than just retainer packages, right? So it depends on what they've been through and what they've seen possible for them. And if they are placing like past experiences on a current idea that isn't quite the same, that can affect things too. I think it's also like you think about the progression of businesses. Like for a lot of people, it's... as creatives, it's someone paid me to take photos. Awesome. Now you think about every type of way for you to make money is holding a camera, which is a one-off sale. Or my mom's office asked me to design a logo for them. That's now a one-off thing. And so your context of making money is I have to make a sale. And for a lot of people, they just scale that business model and they don't have examples of there's other ways to make your income more consistent or predictable just because they're not aware of it and that's where you end up with a lot of creatives of the feast and famine of running their business. If you go through a season, you book a lot of clients, then you're really busy delivering and you kind of forget about signing clients for the next month. You get in the next month and week one you're super stressed about I have no income coming in this month and then the cycle repeats. So if we are the people that are zooming out for them of maybe we can take a longer timeframe point of view of this, of what are your big goals and how can we think about the business model that helps you? Because we spend a lot of time thinking about business models and recurring is a goal for a lot of people and it's a gap that they have no idea how to get there. Yeah, and I mean, you can absolutely have a blend of one off and recurring. It doesn't mean you have to have fully one or fully the other. ⁓ And there's so many different types of recurring models too. You could have memberships, could have retainers, you could have subscriptions, you could have some form of passive income, right? But ⁓ there's never just one thing. And I, as a creative, I have a lot of fun thinking outside the box and looking at the gaps that you see in your industry that need to be filled. Is there a way that you can then turn that into an ongoing relationship? Even think about ⁓ one of our friends runs a agency for influencers and works with a lot of big name brands, connecting them with those influencers for brand partnerships. And knowing from her that big brands are also looking for long term partnerships with content creators and influencers. We were just on another podcast with someone earlier who really prefers having long-term relationships with her employees, with her team members. And so I think we're in this season in the world right now and with business where people are craving that long-term relationship in so many capacities, which makes it a great time, in my opinion, to pursue something that is more ongoing or recurring. And you just got to find the way that it works best for you, that you're excited about. Evie Tavares: Yeah. Jo & Lyndon: delivering and showing up for, and that is a great fit and overlap for your clientele as well. Evie Tavares: That's so true. found even in my business, like for copywriting, I have the one-off projects, which I'm always like, you know, I've got certain number of spots per month, but then I've also got my retainer clients and like, I'm always full on those. Like it's always something that people need. And it is like, I don't know, it's hard to like figure out what's the balance between do I want to just fill up on retainers or do I want to have like Jo & Lyndon: Yeah. Yep. Great. Evie Tavares: one-off projects. think, like you said, the mix is nice. And yeah, kind of that long-term partnership with those retainer clients is one of my favourite things for sure. Okay. So tell me, I know you've had a few pivots in your business. I've known you just a few. So tell me about a pivot that you had to make in your business and what pushed you to make that pivot. Jo & Lyndon: Yeah. It is. Just a few. Evie Tavares: and how did you pivot publicly? Why don't we go from, I mean, the one that I remember the most is from Bravotography to Coaching. Jo & Lyndon: Just any pivot? Yeah, which one? Yeah, yeah, I think that's probably the one that feels like the most front of face, front facing for people. I don't know. It's the most recent for sure. Okay, can you remind me the questions again? Evie Tavares: ⁓ Yes, so what pushed you to make the pivot and how did you do it publicly? Like how did you and break it to your audience? Jo & Lyndon: Yeah. Okay, so what pushed us to make the pivot? The short answer is I was really burnt out and way more than anyone would ever have known ⁓ because these are not the types of things that we often talk about online, especially when they are happening. I'm a big fan of talking about things after you have healed from wounds than when you are in the healing process. ⁓ That's my personal preference, but I got really, really burnt out and it happened gradually over a couple of years. So it wasn't like a overnight thing. And I think it's funny, we actually tried to put it from photography into coaching one year prior and we just weren't ready for it with the client load and the phasing out and all of that. And so the second time around, most people don't even realize there was a first, but the second time around, What led to it was, one, feeling burnt out, realizing that we needed to make some changes. But two, it was also what we were just talking about with, I didn't want to keep doing these one-off projects for the rest of my life. Like, I have big dreams and other things I want to be able to do and experience in my lifetime. And I just never fully envisioned myself running a photo company at 40 years old. And so... because that was not part of the big vision, plus it was burning me out. We knew it was time for a change. And then the third component there is I was wrestling with whether or not the timing was right or not because we'd tried once and it didn't work. And so I was like, okay, is this something that we want to do? Is it something that we are ready to do that God is okay with us doing? And so I was really praying a lot about it. And I just had this morning where I felt like I had this moment of peace. where I was talking to God about it once again, and just like, okay, so how do we balance both like photography and coaching? Like, I don't know the best way to go about it. He was like, just focus on coaching, girl. Like, just don't stress so much about it. Like, just trust me. It's okay, just do coaching. And so I really leaned into that and trusted it, and it helped so much with the peace equation of things as we went forward. And as far as the... way that we phased out of photography. It's interesting because I think on the surface it may have felt very abrupt for different people who didn't really see it coming. But if you had seen the back end, we really didn't have many photo clients at all anymore. I mean, they had the numbers had dropped quite a bit. We were doing more coaching anyway, and so we'd started naturally phasing into coaching. And so it really for us was just time to be able to, as Lyndon says, burn the boats and step into the next season of business. So we did a fun launch campaign, paired it with a new website, announced that doors were closing to photography for good, and we were going all in on business coaching. And that was really our burn the boats, move into the next thing phase. And I'll let Lyndon explain what that means for anyone who's listening. Like, what does that mean? ⁓ And it was just a hard line in the sand ⁓ and helped us to be able to fully step into our role as business coaches. And it helped a lot, not only for how people then started to see us because then it's funny, a few months and we started getting so many people coming into our world who are like, we had no idea you used to be photographers. We just see you as business coaches. Right. And so it made things a lot clearer in the messaging and it also gave us a lot of clarity and ownership over what we were focusing on rather than feeling like we had a split focus. And then the final piece was it really set us up for more of that recurring because Fast forward well over a year later, we've got our membership, which was not on our radar at all at the time. That's a whole other story. And that's recurring lights us up a ton. We've got a handful of one-on-one coaching clients also ongoing. And it is so helpful to have that peace of mind where we've got that freedom and flexibility in business, which is something that's very important to me for multiple reasons. If we wanted to take calls in another country, honestly, we could like depending on the time zone. We can take calls from anywhere and the fact that we have that flexibility brings me so much peace. ⁓ So that's kind of the backstory what led to it and how we went about it. Do you want to quickly explain the burn the boats just to wrap that up? Yeah, so if you there was a meme at one point of how often you think about the Roman Empire. I think about Spanish conquistadors a lot more ⁓ because it's the idea of Evie Tavares: Thank Jo & Lyndon: When the Spanish came to South America, they saw like the leaders, generals, marshals, whatever the people in charge were called, colonels, I don't know. ⁓ They basically saw that their soldiers would not actually want to like fight and conquer when they knew that there was a retreat option or the boats. And so when soldiers are given the choice of I can do this and possibly die or I can go back on that boat and ⁓ surely live, they're all gonna go back on the boat. And so they got to the shore and they burned the boats, which was basically saying the only way you live is if you win. And so by removing the option of retreat, you are now much more likely to succeed because you have no other options. And one of the things that like we saw is the year before when we tried to do both photography and coaching or for multiple years, it was always in a like famine month. we would push photography because that was the sure win and we didn't double down on coaching. And so by burning the boats of photography, it was, we have to make coaching win and it worked. like the hindsight is 20-20. I think the other possible framework that I will give you outside of burning the boats for this is the idea, like I've been thinking recently about when we make decisions, it's like a triple P framework of, Evie Tavares: Okay. Jo & Lyndon: It's about profit, passion, or purpose. And if we can think about it aligns with those, then it makes sense for us to make a big decision. And like, if I define those specific, like profit is a no-brainer. Passion is like what lights you up? What puts you in a flow state? What do you actually wake up in the morning excited to do? Turns out photography was not that for us anymore. And then purpose is when you think about the impact you wanna have on the world, is this that? and photography, just like Joe was saying, she didn't want to run a photography business when she was 40. Like we have big purpose goals that photography was not the shortest route to like, yes, it probably could have gotten there, but it wasn't the shorter route. And so we were at a place where we were at like half or one of three. And it was kind of a decision of like, do we double down here or do we look at the other side of our business that makes a lot more sense for aligning on those three P's. Evie Tavares: Mm hmm. I love that. Because yeah, I think especially as creatives, we're like multi passionate, right? There's a lot of things we want to do. And like, I think trying to even trying to find like one or like, for me to like finding the thing like you said, that cover those three P's is like the biggest thing, right? Because you don't want to end up presenting it later on and having a business that you're not in love with, right? Jo & Lyndon: Right. Exactly. Right. And like literally before this, I was writing our email going out tomorrow and part of it is like, it's okay to have hobbies to check some of those passion things that don't have to be included in your business because multi-passionate will always be multi-passionate, but entrepreneur does not mean put all the passions in one place. Evie Tavares: Okay. I have noticed on your Instagram you still do a lot of like the photography like you have a lot of fun with with your photos on your trips and that kind of thing so I can definitely see that yeah Jo & Lyndon: Yeah, yeah, the difference is now it's for us and it's for our brand and I did not realize how much I needed that. ⁓ And so it is fun. I still have ways to be able to express my creativity, but it feels like going back to my roots a lot and back to where it all began. The reason I loved it in the first place was because I was being creative for me and somewhere down the road, it turned into doing things for other people and I won't spend a ton of time on that thought, but it's a lesson that I had to learn a few times the hard way that anytime you're doing something for someone else, it's not always going to end up the way that you hope. It is much more fulfilling, satisfying, rewarding, and long lasting when it is done for you. ⁓ So that's, that's that on that. Evie Tavares: end of the episode. Okay, so I mentioned earlier, you have a membership called the break room, which I love incredible community, ⁓ just like the level of like strategy that is brought into it, not just from you, but from the other people in it is incredible and the sense of community. ⁓ And I think you mentioned before that that wasn't part of the plan to start a membership changed. Yeah. Jo & Lyndon: you Yep, sure do. Right. It was not. was not. Yeah. So how did it come to be? ⁓ We both have like different pieces to the story. I think I'll let Lyndon share his first because it goes back further and then I'll add on to it. So we closed doors to branding photography around this a couple months ago last year. And one of the things we noticed pretty early on is we had like a number of coaching clients that are consistently asking the same questions. And it felt like deja vu sometimes sitting on multiple calls in the same week where we would talk about the exact same topics. And it was starting to be, ⁓ there's, there would be a ton of value if we just put you guys in a room because you're doing the same things. And what that started with like last spring was what if we just put all our coaching clients together? Like we had a group chat called coaching crew and we would put them on calls and there was a ton of value there but the structure was wrong. And that basically kicked off a journey for us. What is the right structure? And throughout the next six to eight months, aren't we subconsciously figured that out? I don't think either of us consciously knew that was the kickoff point, but looking backwards, for me, that's where my subconscious started thinking about of, maybe we put people on a coffee chat together. Maybe we put them on a weekly call together that is just a recurring meeting invite. Maybe there's a much bigger way we can do this with the strategy side you were talking about inside of an online membership, but that costs us money. What if we charge people money to be in that room and is there value to scale here and what would the programming look like and... all of that snowballs into what has become the break room. Yeah, I think the other thing is anytime you're going through a pivot, it is a lot to figure out and navigate, especially if you don't have people who you can talk to or through things as they happen. And so when we were going through the biggest pivot yet in our business, we were also trying to find our own people who we could. talk to through things and ask to give advice or pray over us or whatever it was. And that was a pretty big component that led to all of this. I mean, at the beginning of the year, didn't have running a membership on our radar. By fall, we had launched a membership and I think had 10 members within the first month or something like that. And so it was a gradual thing and there was a lot of mindset that went into it for us as well. Like who are we to be community leaders and is that something that we're even like qualified for or whatever? And that was an interesting thing for me too because I am a big fan of collecting evidence and receipts for yourself to show yourself what you are capable of. And so for me, I... before we even, like, I think this was when we had started doing more coffee chats. And so we were starting to pursue more connection with people. We would look at who is in our audience that we've never actually had a face-to-face conversation with. ⁓ maybe not even more than a handful of messages and the DMs and can we actually hop on a zoom call and get to know them as a human and we started intentionally doing that week to week and that led to like a handful of people on each call which then led to bigger group calls which then led to the break room and so at the beginning of all of this there was a lot of like who are we, are we doing? Like you're wrestling through all of the emotions that come with anything new. And I looked back at my camera roll and I started to notice a theme that there has been multiple times over the past years since the beginning of starting a business where I have put myself in rooms with other business owners or I have cultivated rooms with other business owners. and looked for that connection and community aspect because I'm a big believer that you cannot get to where you want to be on your own. You're going to have a support system of some kind. People who are going to speak life back into you when you are doubting yourself, people who are going to connect you with other people you need to be connected with, with whatever dream it is that you're bringing to life, who have resources or... I know this person who is looking for that job that you just posted and they would be such a great fit. And I think you guys would work really well together. Like we, the reason that we thrive as humans is because of the other humans we surround ourselves with. ⁓ This is a other point that I heard someone say years ago, if you want to change your life, change your friends. And I think that applies to so many different things. ⁓ If you want to. Evie Tavares: Mm-hmm. Jo & Lyndon: move further in business, look at who you're surrounding yourself with. Are they also going towards big goals? Are they pushing you outside of your comfort zone? Are they unafraid to call you out whenever you start to regress into a mindset that might not be serving you so well or habits that might not actually be helping you get to where you go, whatever it is, right? The people you surround yourself with matter so much. And to go back to the evidence. Once I saw that I had been collecting evidence for myself all along, that I was already community leader and I just needed to see that for myself and own it. I think after that, it was like game over, you know? And so it gave us more confidence and just moving past every single stage and being willing to ask those questions and get that feedback so that we could create a space that would be so. Serving for other business owners and help them to be able to grow and also have the support system They needed to feel equipped in every way possible along the process. I Think possibly the thing that I'll add is as soon as we started looking for it. The examples were everywhere Like if you look at like if it takes a village to grow a child, why are you trying to build your business on your own? If you want to get fit you could do it at home, but you're much more likely to succeed if you go to a gym if you Evie Tavares: Mm. Mm-hmm. Jo & Lyndon: are like a doctor and you're struggling with something, you go and talk to other doctors because you just ask a second opinion. Like it's built into so many different frames of the lives that we live right now of you spend time with people doing the things you wanna do and it makes you go much further, much faster. And it just, we were not seeing it in our space. Evie Tavares: And so building the room that you felt was needed for yourselves and for others. Yeah. Jo & Lyndon: Yeah. And then it really honestly took on a life of its own. mean, we're at the point where Lyndon has brought this up a few different times. Like our, our members inside of the break room call it their community. Like it's our community as a collective. That is the biggest compliment we could ever hear. Like this is not about us. It's about like the collective us, you know? And so it's been really, really cool to see them do their thing and bring so much to the space because it wouldn't exist without them in the first place. Evie Tavares: me. Jo & Lyndon: Clearly we care about it, we've talked about it for like 10 minutes now. Evie Tavares: Yeah, I know I'm dead in the show notes. So anyone who's listening, it sounds like the kind of room that they want to be in, go follow the link and go check it out. Yeah. I had one other question too about the membership. What have you kind of, because I think that's a, there's a lot of people wanting to grow like that kind of community, like starting a membership. What are the biggest lessons that you've learned since starting the membership? Jo & Lyndon: We would love to have you. Mm-hmm. Ooh, I'll let you take this one. We've learned a lot. I think probably if I was to categorize, A, you can't copy someone else's membership because you'll never do well if you're just copying someone else's. It has to be something personal to you that you're good at. Like we interviewed Becky Peterson-Davidson on our podcast not that long ago and she was like, you need to have a framework or a signature something that you base your community around. Otherwise there's no reason people join. Two, you can't sell community. you have to sell like a transformation or a result or something like that because community keeps people, results sell people. And so you need something to get people in the door first. I had a third one. I think it's very common for people to bolt on a community to something they're already doing. And you end up with something that's just a checklist for you. And I think one of the things that we have learned is if it's not your main thing, it's hard to make it good. Because like for us, one of the things we learned is what the break room looks like today. kind of is a shadow of what we launched. Like a lot of the core pieces are the same, but we have taken feedback every week or two and we've iterated on things because we realized these are the things that our community cares about. These are the things that we are actually driving results for our customers. This is how we're helping them build businesses. And ⁓ this other thing that we launched with, it was just shiny, nice to have, and no wonder it actually really participates in that. so it's extra work for us and no one cares about it. So if you are willing to be iterative and think about it as a growing thing and grow with it It's much more likely to succeed than if it's just I have a group program and I'm just gonna bolt a community on the side because everyone else has one I Think that would be my three things. I've learned right now Evie Tavares: I think when I think of like the memberships that I love to be in, they've all done that. They've all kind of like grown and evolved from what they originally were. And like you said, it's taking that feedback and allowing that feedback to change things instead of just being like, well, I made this thing and like it's perfect. It's like allow your community to help you to build it and to grow it. Jo & Lyndon: Great. Yeah. Yep, exactly. I think the other thing, sorry, the fourth one that I'm gonna add is you can't be too precious about your dreams. Because if you're building a community, it's not just your dreams. It's other people's as well. And you kind of have to share and realize that how you want people to see impact might not be how they actually do. And so if you're clutching so tightly to your original vision, Evie Tavares: Yeah. Jo & Lyndon: you might miss the huge opportunity that's right next door. Evie Tavares: Love that. So did you have any lessons that you learned? Jo & Lyndon: Honestly, I think I heard somebody say this recently that when you're in the business of humans, the humans really matter. And so I think that's been the biggest reminder for me is that at the end of the day, the thing that matters so much to us is the humans inside of this space. And so what are we doing to make sure that they are feeling supported and taken care of and safe? and psychologically to be able to bring their full selves and ask these questions that may sometimes feel vulnerable but are so helpful to navigate together on. So being willing to check in on people and have onboarding calls when they first join to really get to know them as a human has made a huge difference in how we're able to help them. hopefully feel like they belong right off the bat. That's something that's so important to us. We don't want you to feel like you're just another number or just another member. Like you have something to bring to this space and we want to highlight that and make sure that it is shown, you know, well. So honestly, I think the biggest lesson for me is just continuing to be in the business of humans and treat it as such. Evie Tavares: I love that. Okay, amazing. ⁓ I had, so I usually do rapid fire at the end, but I have a special idea for you guys. Before we get to that, ⁓ let me know or let the audience know kind of where's the best way, where's the best place for people to find you and the best way for people to work with you. Jo & Lyndon: Ooh. Yes, please. ⁓ We would love to connect with you guys. We're on Instagram often at JoAndLyndon is our handle. Our website is JoAndLyndon.com. ⁓ So you can find ways to work with us and the break room there that has all the information. We also host a podcast called the Sustainable Creator and we would love to be able to have you over there as well. Evie Tavares: Okay, so instead of rapid fire, we're gonna play who's most likely to. Jo & Lyndon: Ooh, I love this. Let's do it. Evie Tavares: But instead of just pointing, you'll have to like say the name. I know in the Instagram version people just point, but we have to say the name for people who listening. Okay, so who's most likely to stay up until 2 a.m. going down a business idea rabbit hole? Jo & Lyndon: Sure, okay. Noted. Got it. Linden. Evie Tavares: Who's most likely to talk a client out of a bad idea? Jo & Lyndon: Both of us? Probably... In our own way, both of us. ⁓ Joe will take the emotional route, and I will probably take a business model or a profitability or a structure route. Yes. Evie Tavares: Okay, perfect. And it's the most likely to check Instagram analytics first thing in the morning. Jo & Lyndon: Linden. Yeah, Linden. Which is funny to say because I'm the one who posts on Instagram. ⁓ I just don't really check the analytics very often. I honestly don't either. ⁓ I spend a lot of time in DMs. I don't scroll on our Instagram at all. And I only look at client stories. Evie Tavares: Okay. Mm-hmm. I feel like that's a lesson in itself. Like, just do your thing. Don't worry about the analytics too much, right? Jo & Lyndon: Yep. I think the closest to analytics is I do pay attention to who watches our stories consistently, just because it's a curiosity of mine. Evie Tavares: Okay. Yeah, have you kind of like learned anything from that? Has anything come of that? Jo & Lyndon: some good connections. I think good connections that's also like where we will sometimes like do coffee chats with people of like, hey, you're consistently around and like once they engage in something, it's like, ⁓ I've seen this name over and over. It's worth just like going the extra mile. They started a conversation. We'd love to get to know you because we have now seen your name like 1500 times in the last two years. There's something there. Evie Tavares: Yeah. I've heard like, when we talk about that in the way that they're already taking the first step by following you, watching your story, engaging with you. It's your response, like let's say responsibility to take that second step of reaching out to them because they've already taken the first step. Jo & Lyndon: Mmm. Hmm. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah, I think the business side of it is we have converted some of those people into paying clients through they engaged and we gave them a personal invite that kind of nudged them of like, ⁓ I am a good fit for this, even though they've just been paying attention for a while, but just us saying, we think you'd be a really great fit is enough for them to sign up for a trial or something. Evie Tavares: Yeah, for sure. Okay, ⁓ who's most likely to book an impulse trip or vacation? Jo & Lyndon: ⁓ man. How do you define impulse trip? Evie Tavares: Like, Joe walks in and says, London, we're going to Vegas this weekend. Jo & Lyndon: I will walk in and say I want to go to wherever this is this weekend. I'll give this one to Joe. Yeah, it would probably be me. I'm a pretty close second. Evie Tavares: Yeah. Who's most likely to have already read the book before the other one even knows it exists? Jo & Lyndon: Ciao. Evie Tavares: ⁓ Who's most likely to send a voice memo that's actually just a full podcast episode? Who's most likely to be the reason that you're late leaving the house? Jo & Lyndon: Yo. I feel like it's me again. Probably Joe. Honestly could go either way. It go either way. It depends on the day. Evie Tavares: If you were getting points for these two, think you'd be. Who's most likely to turn a casual dinner conversation into a full business planning session? Jo & Lyndon: Thank you. Linden. 100 % Linden. With us or with clients? Evie Tavares: for Linden there with you. Like if you guys went out for like a date night, who would switch it to? Jo & Lyndon: I actually don't think the answer changes. I think it's for Glendon either way. It applies both ways. Evie Tavares: Yes. Who's most likely to add something to the to-do list that was never discussed? Jo & Lyndon: Yeah, literally this week I'm like, why did I add all these things to the to-do list? They don't even matter. Evie Tavares: Yeah. Okay, amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming on. It was really, really awesome to be able to talk to you too and get like kind of the behind the scenes of your business and to share what you have to offer. Because like I said, I've been in your world for pretty much as long as I've been in business. And I know that you are just incredible at what you do. So thank you so much for coming on. Jo & Lyndon: You're welcome. You got the actual tea. So thank you so much for having us. This is great. Yeah. Evie Tavares: Yeah. Perfect. We'll chat soon.