Hey Hey, welcome back to Episode 200 B? This is part two of our 200th Episode celebration here on Cubicle to CEO. So if you haven't listened yet, to part one, make sure you tune into that first, we'll link it below in the show notes for your convenience. But if you've already listened to that, hello, welcome back to part two. Today I will be answering the remaining nine questions you all submitted for our listener q&a In celebration of our 200th episode here on the show.
And I also wanted to give a huge shout out and congratulations to Madison Sanford, who is the winner of our giveaway that was part of this celebration. So Madison, you have won a $200 shopping spree at your favorite small business. So by this point, my team should have already reached out to you for you to select which small business you want to patronize. And we'll make sure to buy you a gift card to that store. And you can spend your $200 however you please there. So this was our way to celebrate small business. Thank you for participating. Thank you to all of you who entered our giveaway, the winner was selected by random drawing. And so congratulations, Madison. Alright, let's get into the first question in part two.
Hi, my name is Michelle of her healthy habits @themichellepualani. And my question is, what do you find to be the key difference between creators who are quote unquote, doing all the right things they're supposed to, and not seeing growth in follower count or revenue, versus those who take the same consistent actions, but see some version of explosive growth in their presence and in their business.
Hi, Michelle, I love that you're asking for my hot take on this. I feel like that's right in line with our show format of asking our guests a hot take. But this is this is a tough question. Because like many things in business, and like many of my answers so far, there isn't a black and white rule to why sometimes two people can take the exact same actions and come away with completely different results. However, I do have a few thoughts on this. First, I think is important to address not treating your business or the actions that you're taking in your business like a Task Rabbit, let me quickly clarify what I mean by that. I think oftentimes business owners fall in this trap of being told these are the things you should do, quote unquote, to, you know, reach some level of success. And they start to treat the actions that support that these shoulds as you will, as tasks on their to do list. And they're just mindlessly checking them off to say that they did them right things, like posting every day on social or sending out an email to your list or whatever it may be these things that you feel you should do. Because somewhere, you've been told that you never maybe stopped to question why you're doing that. And you just treat it as an item to be done in your list. So at the end of your day, the more tasks you check off, the more productive you feel are, the more you feel like you've actually worked in your business, when in reality, sometimes the things that you're doing are not actually progressing you towards what you want, right? But because we've been trained that, okay, these are our shoulds. And if we cross off as many things as we can, we're doing the right things.
So I feel like that's, that's the most important thing to address versus getting away from that mentality of treating your business like a TaskRabbit. And instead thinking about, okay, instead of looking at how much can I get done, and how fast instead of really asking yourself, what is the purpose behind every action, I'm taking every task that I'm doing, because as we all know, the right actions versus the wrong actions. And I say wrong in terms of not like ethically wrong, but just maybe wrong for you in terms of supporting your goals. It all depends on the context of who is taking the action and the goals they actually have. Because those vary from people to people, right? I always give the example that if you were to plug in the wrong address on your GPS, you can take all the right directions there like you can turn out all the correct stoplights, you know, you can stop at the right stop signs, you can go down the right street, you can follow those instructions to a tee and still end up in a destination that is not the one you want. And at that point, you can't really blame the GPS. It wasn't that it fed you the wrong instructions or directions to get there. It's that your input was wrong to begin with right or wrong for you, because it wasn't leading you to where you want it to go.
And so I think you really have to consider first what is the actual goal of of any action or item that I'm doing. Because if we're going back to your original question of two people doing the same things, if you don't dig deeper below that surface level of just observing what they're doing from the outside, two people could be doing the same thing. But their end goal or objective might look completely different. Like one person might be, for example, posting every day on social media, because their primary goal is to grow their audience on let's say, Instagram, and they value let's say, a higher follower count more so than any other metric in their business. Is that right or wrong? We can't really say because that may be their primary goal. But let's say your goal is not just to amass the most amount of followers possible, let's say your goal is to get, you know, more sales in your business, more revenue in your business, you and the other person could be doing the same thing. And they might be doing that and getting to their goal of reaching a higher number of followers. But you might be doing that same action and not getting any closer to increasing your revenue. Because your two objectives, your starting points for where you're wanting to go were different to begin with, even though you're performing the same action. I hope that's kind of clicking for you.
What I would instead encourage you or anyone else listening, who may be struggling with this and looking at how I'm doing the same things, as a person to my left and the person to my right, why am I ending up in a different place, is again, to get really clear on ultimately, each action that you're taking, what is it that you're actually hoping to do and reevaluating if the actions you're taking, are actually the ones that best support that goal. Because again, without knowing the context of other people's businesses, it's hard just to copy paste a strategy, right? Context really is queen here. But also looking at understanding where your sales leak is, this is another big piece a lot of people don't take the time to understand. And that's the different levers in your business that ultimately contribute to the growth or decline of your business in terms of profitability, or in terms of cash collected. And those three levers are traffic leads and sales. So everything you're doing your business is either leading to more traffic, more leads, or more sales, right or not. And so you kind of have to understand what is actually bringing in the traffic in my business, because some people view traffic building activities as sales activities, and they're not, they're not the same thing at all right?
Traffic is all about getting more eyeballs, more awareness on what your business's who you serve, and how you serve them. Leads is getting that movement from awareness to consideration, right, someone actually giving you a piece of information for you to continue to nurture them into a sale. And then the sale itself is actually taking someone that final step to okay, I'm considering to I'm actually going to purchase and become a customer. Those are three completely different things. And they require different actions. So first of all, you have to understand within your own business system, what are the actions you're doing that are supporting those three levers? And then further evaluating to see, where's my biggest leak happening in my business? Like, am I crushing it in the traffic department? But once I get the eyeballs to me, they don't seem to move any further into a lead? Or is it like no, I'm actually crushing it in traffic and leads. But it's that jump from lead to sale that is falling short? Or is it like no, if I get a lead in the door, I'm crushing with sales, like almost every person that's becoming a lead also becomes a customer. But my problem is that I don't get enough traffic, I just don't get enough actual people into my pipeline or into my ecosystem to begin with to even have the opportunity to convert them to a lead or a sale. Right. So understanding those three levers and where your leaks specifically is happening is going to allow you to better assess which action items you need to take to address that problem or that leak.
Hi, this is Laura Camacho of @speakupwithlaura. I'm a Communication Coach. I have a podcast called Speak up with Laura. It's rated number four for communication skills. But I'm getting bored with it. And I just feel like it's lost its sizzle. I feel like some of the guests that I get a lot of people that want to be on it. And I just wants to know if you have any suggestions your podcast is so good. If you have some suggestions for adding more value to a podcast that would apply. Most of my audience work in corporate there are engineers and technical people, some business owners who want to get better at communication and I usually interview communication experts. Thank you so much. Bye.
Hi Laura, great to hear from you. Thank you by the way for your compliments about our podcast. That really means so much to me. I have a couple questions actually to ask you and I hope that these questions kind of prompt you to gain a little bit more clarity on why it is that you feel your show has lost Post it sizzle. So the first thing I think you need to really get clear on is what part of your podcast do you actually feel bored with, right? Because maybe you're looking at your show in its entirety. And you're thinking, I'm kind of over this, like, I don't want to do this anymore. But maybe it's actually, in reality, a much smaller piece of the podcast process that's making your show no longer feel alive or exciting to you. And if you were able to just tweak this one small part of your show, everything else kind of kicks back into gear. So let's go ahead and look at what that might be. Right?
So for example, do you feel like it's the format of your show? That's kind of lost its appeal? And you know, I'm saying this from the perspective of not having listened to your full library. But are you primarily a guest show? I'm assuming? Yes. Because a lot of people are, you know, asking to be on your show? Would you rather be a solo show? Do you enjoy your solo episodes more? Or is that something that you also equally kind of feel indifferent towards? Right? That's something to consider? Is it the format itself? Is it the frequency? How often are you publishing episodes? Is it the frequency that feels unsustainable, many people start a podcast and they immediately default to a weekly cadence because that is what they typically see, in especially the online business world, which I know you're kind of like a sector, you're not exactly in the online business niche, per se, because most of your clients and people listening in are working in corporate jobs, but it's still in the business realm. Right. And so oftentimes, we can look to our peers and see, oh, most people are creating a weekly episodic show. But maybe that's not the frequency that is actually sustainable for you, have you considered trying a different frequency, maybe publishing an episode, once every two weeks, or maybe making a season based show where you're able to batch record, and publish and drip out a season a finite number of episodes, and have those hiatuses in between that allow you to rejuvenate your energy around the show, and then come back to record a new season? So that's something else to consider.
Also, is it perhaps the guest selection itself, are you not being selective enough in the criteria of the people that you bring on the show, which may then be leading to a lower quality of conversations, that isn't quite stimulating you as the host, or you feel maybe isn't servicing your listeners in the best way. This actually is something that we really, I feel like, implemented in our podcast, that makes such a big difference, because prior to and I don't remember exactly when it was that we switched over a show format, it's been at least I would say, it's been at least a year. Now, I want to say, but prior to our current show format, we used to kind of just fly by the seat of our pants. And what I mean by that is, you know, if a guest pitch themselves to be on our show, where maybe I met someone who I really liked as a person, or as an entrepreneur, and I thought they were interesting, had some sort of, you know, interesting story, we would just bring them on our show without really any clear direction as to what the conversation would be about. So it was really more like coffee between friends, which there's nothing wrong with that format of a show. But because there was no clarity on either side about what the conversation would turn out to be, it just kind of was so random each week, right? So because we didn't have a clear show structure, the conversation would flow naturally. But it wouldn't always lead to, in my opinion, the highest quality content, right? Some guests would go off on large tangents that I felt didn't really add a ton of value to our listeners, some episodes would feel very regurgitated, like this person has practiced almost like a script, like they've said the same thing on this podcast, as they've said, on 50 other podcasts, so it didn't really feel like being on our show, added any sort of new value to the listener, like they could have just found the same information somewhere else.
There were all these factors that I didn't really feel like we were differentiating ourselves as a podcast enough. And so when we switched to our new show format, that's when everything changed. I realized that what I really loved most when talking to entrepreneurs, was getting an understanding of the real time strategies. They were implementing in their own business, the things that they were testing right now, and them sharing what the results ended up being both the good stuff and the not so good stuff, right? And also adding in that layer of financial transparency or financial data around those decisions and choices they made, like how did that impact their business from a revenue or profit perspective? And what did those numbers actually look like? These were the things that I felt like a I was not able to easily find on Google and be that most people weren't readily sharing on other people's business podcasts already right. With most other shows. Guests are coming on in sharing their founder story, something that you could easily Google or they've probably shared a million times before, they may also be sharing their three to five key talking points around a strategy that they're known expert for, which is awesome. But since other shows already covered that arena, we wanted to be able to come in and provide something different.
So even if let's say, someone like you, right, you may be a communications coach or a speaking coach, and you may have some great strategies around, you know, how people can become better communicators, or speakers. But if you came on our show, we probably wouldn't be interviewing you about your expertise, right? Instead, we would be asking, Hey, in your communication business, what is a strategy that you're testing right now in real time, and how has that turned out for you, let's dig into a specific case study of the behind the scenes of your own business. And that case study may have nothing to do with your expertise as a communications coach, but it has everything to do with you, and how you're operating and approaching your business as an entrepreneur. And this is a show about entrepreneurship, right? So I hope that my explanation of how we shifted, our show kind of inspires or helps get your creativity flowing on how you could differentiate your show.
And if you're not quite ready to completely, you know, shift the entire format of your show, maybe instead, you can even introduce a segment, we've tested different things in our business before, right, we tested like a lightning round segment in our podcast episodes where we would rapid fire, ask our guests three, just for fun questions, random questions, and I did enjoy that segment. But ultimately, we pulled the plug on it because we feel like it wasn't necessarily, you know, bringing an element to the show that our listeners were coming back to us for like the feedback we were getting, in terms of what people were really loving was the financial transparency the data. So we wanted to lean even heavier into that, rather than try to bring in this other element that was just for fun, but again, didn't really serve the greater purpose of our show. So maybe it's you trying different little segments that you can insert into your show to keep things fresh, and to see what you like and don't like about certain segments or certain guests or certain types of questions. Right away.
The last thing, Laura, that I want you to think about is what is the larger purpose of your podcast as a whole. This is really important because this, again, is where context really matters. For us as a media company, our podcast is actually one of our primary products, it's free to our listeners, but we treat it like a product as if it were a paid product, we invest as many resources and team labor and promotional dollars into it as if we were promoting a paid product. And so for us, it makes sense to center a large amount of our week and our resources around building the show because it is one of our primary products. However, assuming you are not a media business, which I know you're not because I've met you in person before, you kind of have to understand what role does your podcast play in your larger business ecosystem?
Is this purely a passion project for you or something that started out as a passion project? And you just enjoy having conversations with people in your industry? Okay, cool. That is perfectly valid. But you have to understand that's what purpose it plays, right? Or do you view your podcast as a lead generation or audience nurturing vehicle? Because if that's the case, you're going to treat the type of content you put on there a little bit differently than if it were just a passion project, right? Or do you see the podcast as a networking tool where you're getting to meet different communication experts that then support your business in a different way on the back end? So maybe the podcast isn't a direct driver of revenue per se, but it does allow you to meet certain people that maybe you otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity to chat with, that then builds your business in a different way. So again, these are all different ways that you can approach a podcast but you have to understand which one is it for you. I hope that was helpful.
Hi, Ellen, my name is Nicola Moors from @NicolaMoors. And my question is, how do you get over the fear of outsourcing certain parts of your business to other people and experts in the area. I have a growing copywriting business and I'm working with amazing large clients, but I'm finding myself wasting time on things like tech and admin. Because even though my revenue is great, I feel scared and nervous at the thought of potentially cutting into that profit margin. So I would really love to hear your wisdom on this. Thank you so much.
Hi, Nicola. This is something that all of us I think, struggle with right? No matter how big or smaller profit margins are, no matter what stage of business we're in, it's always feels scary to take your hard earned money and put it somewhere that you don't have a guarantee. On a return, so I totally get it. That said, I think you already kind of know what you want to do, right? You're already self aware and recognizing that you're wasting a lot of time doing tech and admin tasks that are taking you away from your zone of genius and what you are best at. And honestly, what makes you money and your business, which is your skills as a copywriter? And so I think I would look at this in two ways. The first thing is, yes, your your feelings of being scared and nervous about cutting into that profit margin by hiring people to take over those more redundant or administrative tasks is totally valid. However, have you ever thought about flipping that on its head and thinking, maybe I'm already cutting into my profit margin simply by not acting on this at all, because there's an opportunity cost to your decision that you're currently making, right? You may think, Oh, I just haven't made a decision about hiring or not, but for every day that you don't hire, you are actually actively making a decision. And you have to look at that opportunity cost because ultimately, for every hour that you are working on tech or admin stuff, it's an hour that you're not out there building relationships with future clients, or retaining current ones.
It's another hour that you don't have available to fulfill on a client project, which limits your capacity and your ability to earn with that skill. So in reality, you are already cutting into your profit margin, it's just from a different angle. Does that make sense? And so that's one thing, I would encourage you to maybe dwell on a little bit. And then the second thing is thinking about what are you using your high profit margins for, like the high profit margins that you are trying to protect? Why? Or for what are you protecting them for? Is there a use for the money? Or are you simply hoarding the money for the sake of hoarding the money? And I say that from the perspective of someone who totally has that ingrained money, belief in me from my childhood, like, anytime I earn $1, it's like, I want to hold on to it, right? Because coming from the immigrant mentality, it feels like you need to keep as much as you earn, because you're always a little bit more guarded a little bit more. I don't know what the right word is. But like practical, maybe with money, at least, that's how I felt growing up. And so I just want you to know, I totally relate to that tendency or the inclination.
But what I've learned over time, as I've progressed, my own financial IQ and understanding of money, and truly how it works is a recognizing my money, stories, things and beliefs that I have to unlearn as an adult, but also, understanding that money ultimately is a tool to serve a purpose. Right. So if you have high profit margins right now, and you're wanting to maintain that, what are you maintaining it for? What do you hope to use the money for? Is it to fund let's say, a certain standard of living for yourself that you feel comfortable with and want to maintain? If that's your answer, that is totally a valid reason, right? Maybe you have a certain lifestyle that brings you joy, and fulfillment. And you can only sustain that lifestyle if you keep the current high profits. So in which case, it would make sense why you wouldn't want to cut into that you'd have to sacrifice in that area, at least for a time being. Is it for that? Or are you using your high profit margins? For I don't know for saving for a big future purchase? Are you wanting to reinvest it in your business, but maybe just not in this area? These are the questions you have to ask yourself like what am I trying to hold on to this money for an ultimately which decision is going to feed into my long term goals or vision for myself? And if it's making that tech or admin higher than I say, go for it. It seems like deep down inside you already know what you want to do.
Hi, it's Mindi Trimble. That's MINDI on Instagram @MindiTrimbleMentoring. And my question for you, Ellen is what advice would you give to the students that I coach through my college mentorship programs, about what they can do now in high school or even in middle school to start preparing for a career in online entrepreneurship?
Hi Mindi, one thing I always adore and so respect about you is how much you look out for your clients, your students who are college bound and just helping them set up for a successful life and career. So just wanted to shout you out a little bit there. Mindi actually was a recent guest on our podcast, so I'll make sure to link her episode it was with her business bestie Juliet below. So make sure you check that out if you have not listened in yet.
But Mindi, to answer your question, I would say it's all about the hands on experience. I think business is one of those things that you truly cannot just learn in theory from a textbook, it has to be in the hands on doing. So I would really advise anyone who's interested in a career in online entrepreneurship to engage in as many internships as possible, especially if the internship is with a small business, or a startup, if you can get in that startup environment, it's going to be massively helpful, because startups are one of the very few environments that gets you as close as you can in from an observation perspective, to what it's like to build a business from the ground up without actually being in the driver's seat and being at the helm of everything as the founder yourself, right. And I think the beauty is when you get to work on these smaller teams, they tend to give you even if you are coming from a place of not having a lot of working experience, or maybe your younger age than your peers, I still think that when you're working in these smaller teams, you just naturally tend to have more autonomy, which means more ability to flex your creativity, right, and the opportunity to wear many hats and make more decisions that actually get heard and implemented on rather than if you're just you know, one of you know, hundreds of interns, this big, giant corporate machine, you're kind of very refined and limited to what you can do and what your role is. But when you're working with a small business or a startup, you just by nature, because there are limited and resources in staff, you get to try on so many different hats.
And I think being in middle or high school is the most opportune time for you to explore a wide range of skills and roles without any sort of barriers, right, you don't feel that you need to lock into any one specific thing, because you're not responsible for paying all the bills and, and taking care of yourself, usually right at that point in your life, you have the support of a family structure. And so in taking advantage of this unique moment in time where you're still living in a household, right and not completely on your own, I think it's such an amazing time to just get to explore as many skills and as many roles as you can to determine what you like and what you don't like. And also, I think what is so beautiful about starting young and starting early and working in as many organizations as you can, is that allows you to build relationships in the business space early. And as you know, Mindi from being in my community, I am such a believer that relationships are by far the greatest asset in your business. And all of the relationships that you're building through these internships are going to come back when you start your own business, your past colleagues or your past bosses, could be your future collaborators, maybe your first clients, referral sources, testimonials, all of these things are so essential that that community is so essential to seeing your business thrive pass it's first year, first five years. And so I think starting those relationships early is huge.
Also, as a last piece of advice, I would tell your students don't hesitate to test building your own business. I think that this is, like I said, the time of your life where you have the biggest cushion for failure, right? It's one of those things where like, it doesn't really matter if your business makes money or not. When you're in middle school or high school, it's just a playground, for you to test different skills to understand the different elements of owning a business like operational admin things and like working with the team communication skills, understanding the sales cycle in the sales, process, understanding marketing, these are things these are skills that have to be learned. And I think nothing teaches you faster than when it's all on you right when you have to build your own business.
So for example, like in high school, I guess I didn't really think of it as a business at the time. But looking back now I could have done a lot more with it had I approached it with that perspective. But I taught I taught piano lessons in high school, I was classically trained in piano for more than a decade growing up and I had the opportunity and the privilege to teach five students from scratch who knew nothing about music, reading music, playing piano, and I, you know, I was able to form them into people who could actually sit down read a piece of music and play and it was it was just such an honor to be part of their lives in that way. But you know, that experience taught me about keeping to a schedule, it taught me about pricing my rates and making sure that you know, things were paid on time it taught me skills around communicating what I do and how to structure an offer, in essence, right how to structure how I would onboard new piano students how I would communicate with their parents how I would structure their lessons, how I would account for different costs like if a student in needed to buy, let's say a book for us to teach out of to learn from or, you know, a book of pieces, like who is going to pay for that? Was it me? Or was it the student? And if it was me, how was I going to factor that into my lesson costs. So all of these things taught me a lot. And I could have probably made that side hustle a much bigger thing had I thought to had I had the foresight, or I guess for now, the hindsight about, you know, what I've learned in business.
Actually, another really inspiring story of this is last summer, I was staying at the independence hotel, and I got to go kayaking with some of my closest business friends who came and visited me the traveling blazers, we've collaborated before and a few events. And we rented these kayaks, actually, from this high school kid locally, who created this business proposal and convince his parents to help him fund his first I think two to four kayaks, I can't remember the exact amount. He took it out as a loan, and he paid them back with his first you know, customers that he got. He just found this opening in the market. There's this beautiful river that runs right through the town, but there were no kayak rentals or business in the area. And so he saw this opportunity and was able to go from just a couple of kayaks to a whole basically fleet of kayaks and has this very thriving business now, especially in the summer, this kid couldn't even drive yet like his his mom actually had to drop him off to bring us the kayaks when we rented it. But he runs the entire operation. He built the website, he deals with the customers. I mean, it's so inspiring. I was so impressed by his drive and his eye for opportunity. And I think that's kind of the beauty of entrepreneurship is these kids who are thinking about it young opportunity is everywhere, if you know where to look and how to how to jump on it quickly. Right and and not let it pass you by so anyways, I hope this is encouraging to your students who hear it.
Hello, my name is Madison from @thenourishedbump. And my question is What is your biggest tip to overcoming impostor syndrome? And when did you know when to take the leap full time into your business?
Hey, Madison, first of all, congrats again, on winning our $200 Small Business gift card giveaway. I can't wait to see which shop you choose to support. In answer to your question. The first piece about overcoming impostor syndrome, I actually addressed a very similar question. Julia Kenyon actually asked this in part one of our 200th Episode celebration. So for you and for anyone listening, go check out part one of this episode to hear my answer to that question about how I approach impostor syndrome.
But to answer part two of your question, Madison here in this episode, when did I know when to take the leap full time into business? To be honest, for me, it was very much a strong intuitive move, like I am someone who when I feel strongly like that gut feeling inside that says, Now is the time or you should do this. Once my mind is set on it, it's almost impossible for me to not follow through. And it's one of those like, je ne sais quoi, right? Like, I don't really know how to explain why or how I feel that way. But it's the honest answer that I just felt strongly that it was time for me to leave this job.
Now, I will caveat this by saying when I left, my job was the end of 2017. I was 23 years old at the time, I was unmarried, to not have a family or kids to support. And I had made a series of choices prior to quitting. And I And when I say choices, I mean choices. I made years prior to quitting or even getting that job when I was still in college. That put me in a position where I could comfortably do so without risking taking on a lot of debt, which is something that I wanted to avoid. I didn't want to take on any debt because I had worked so hard to become debt free. And I wanted to stay that way. I wanted to build my business debt free. Now I realize there's privilege in saying that right? Not everyone has the opportunity to build a business debt free. So that is something to keep in mind. But for myself, that was something very important to me. So to give a little bit more context around this, some of the decisions that I had made, you know, in the years leading up to that decision to quit my job without a backup plan at 23. Were included living with my parents for a year after college. Again, that is a privilege. I understand not everyone has a home that they can move back into or even has the opportunity to go to college. But for me, my parents lived in the same town that I went to school or graduated school. And so after college, it just made sense for me to move back in with them. They had my room available so that I could save a little bit on rent. So that year were I lived with him, I was able to save up a significant amount of money, also transferring to a state school.
So I actually started my college career off at USC, down in LA, which was my dream university. It was everything I wanted in high school that I worked so hard toward. And after my freshman year there, I got my financial aid letter for the following year for sophomore year. And I realized in looking at my financial aid, that I was going to graduate with more than six figures of debt if I chose to stick it out and graduate from USC, which, I mean, don't get me wrong, I highly considered it because like I said, it was my dream school. It was like everything I wanted. And it was so hard. But ultimately, I made the decision to transfer home to a state school, Oregon State University, because I knew that being saddled with that amount of debt leaving school was going to put me in a position with very limited options where I would have to make certain choices in my career based on this overwhelming responsibility to pay off my debt. And I didn't want to feel restricted in that way. So I transferred home to school for or to finish out my college. And I actually ended up making a goal to graduate college debt free, which I was able to do. And that was a combination of, you know, working anywhere from one to three jobs through all of college.
It required me to pitch myself for a job position outside of my state actually a remote position that allowed me to earn much more than a typical college appropriate job, right. Like most of my other jobs were minimum wage jobs. I did waitressing as well, with this one other job that I ended up becoming my first full time job at a college was one I had kind of created for myself with this company that I had proven my value to. And that extra income coming in from that position, which I worked part time while I was in school, and then ended up going full time after I graduated, that extra money coming in allowed me to put all of that towards paying my debt. So I was able to aggressively pay that off. And of course, just naturally, I'm kind of a more careful with money. I've always been a good saver, careful spender. So you know, all of these factors came into play.
And the reason I told you this, it's much more than I know you asked for. But the reason I tell you this is because like my answer to everything else, context really matters, right? The circumstances that you find yourself in that maybe you were born into the privilege that you have, or do not have the risk tolerance that you have, personally, all of these played a role in deciding when is right for you to go full time in your business. So I think understanding your risk tolerance, especially, and your natural personality, your nature, right, because for some people, when their back is against the wall, let's say you quit your job, and you have, you know, no backup plan like I did. And it's like, okay, it's go time, like you have to figure something out, or else you're going to be in a bit of trouble, you know, and not be able to financially afford to take care of yourself or your family or whatever it is. If you're someone who operates at their highest level of creativity, and motivation when your backs against the wall, then hey, maybe putting yourself in a position like that makes sense, right? Even if it's much higher risk. But if you're someone where an environment like that where you, you know, have your back against the wall actually creates scarcity and fear for you, then that would not be a healthy place to be in for you to go full time into your business. Do you know what I'm saying? So it really depends, I think, on your risk tolerance, which I've always had a higher risk tolerance when it comes to business.
And I don't know if it's, I don't know if it's optimism, or just plain naivete and ignorance, but like, I just really believe that everything will work out the way it's supposed to work out. And so that driving force of like, I'm just going to do it. And then you know, I know we'll figure it out. That has worked for me, but I'm not saying that is everybody's nature or personality. And I recognize that. So generally speaking, I've kind of laid out all the context. But generally speaking, though, I do think you want to be able to have some sort of cushion to sustain you for at least six months if your business doesn't quite take off or goes through a slower revenue period than you anticipated. Something that can prevent you from going into a lot of debt, to try to keep up because as soon as you kind of dig yourself into that debt hole, if it's for a sustained period of time of many months, it just becomes a really slippery slope. So I would really think about like what financial cushion do I realistically have to prevent a situation like that? And then also maybe even waiting until Your business has made enough to replace your full time income at your job, or whatever you're doing right now. So that's just kind of more of a general rule of thumb. But I would say, if you're not someone who has to make like a safer bet, or is more conservative, and if you do have a bit of a higher risk tolerance, and you know that about yourself, then, you know, you can jump when the moment is right for you.
Hello, my name is Michelle of Magicave Media. And my question is, what was your favorite business venture so far, and the most important lesson from your experience?
Hi, Michelle. Okay, ooh, this is a this is a difficult one, because I love all the different things we've done in our business for different reasons. If I had to pick, I would say, probably our venture into media, and changing our business model to a media business is probably my favorite thing I've done so far, for a couple different reasons. One, I get to experience being green again, in a new industry and kind of learning a whole new type of business from scratch. And that is really fun to me, because I've always been a very curious person. And I like learning new things. So that's been cool. But also, I feel like this media business really plays into my strengths and relationship building connections, networking, I've always I feel like thrived in that area have of like one to one relationship building and kind of going deeper with people. And I feel like so much of what we do from a revenue perspective.
Now, since a lot of our revenue comes from brand partnerships, getting to build those one on one relationships with our contacts that different brands that we partner with, really serves that, that joy or fulfillment for me. And also, I love the creativity that we have on every campaign for our clients, right, we really get to do different things for every client. So it's not just rinse and repeat every single time, which I also enjoy. And then lastly, I think, and probably the biggest reason why I most enjoy this business venture so far is because it's building an asset that I truly believe can exist even beyond me. So in my role as like a coach or an educator or in one on one services, so much of it was tied to who I am like personally, and building cubicle to CEO. And building this media brand has really opened my eyes to how much potential I think this brand has to live far beyond me. Like even if I were to slowly transition my role from that of, let's say, CEO to more of like talent, like the voice behind this podcast, but not necessarily having to do every single piece of the business. Like if we were, you know, acquired, let's say, by a larger media company where my role gets to shift, or even if I totally just sold the company off, the excitement of knowing I can build an asset that can live beyond me, I think is really appealing.
And then the most important lesson from my experience with this. I know I sound like a broken record every time I say this, but I gotta say it because it's true. It's it's the relationships, it's how much relationships really impact your success in business. And I think what I've learned, as a business owner that has evolved my business model multiple times, first from one on one services, to, you know, coaching, education and now to media. What I've learned is that, so many of those relationships I built in their early stages, you know, five and a half, almost six years ago are still carrying with me into what I'm doing today, even relationships from before that from my corporate career from college, like these relationships are still following me through all of these evolutions and changes. And I think it just really shows why investing in people and investing in relationships is always going to be your best bet in business and understanding that other people's lives and their roles also change and shift through different years and different seasons, right. But if you can maintain those relationships, you never know how they'll come back into play.
And a great real life example of this that's happening in real time right now is one of my very first clients from back before even had like a boutique agency when it was literally just me as a social media Freelancer at the very very start of my business. One of my very early clients that I worked with for quite a while it's now coming full circle, I'm getting to work with her again, but this time as an investor in her new company, and that is I mean, it's wild to think about my 23 year old self being so excited to get you know What felt to me at the time a very big client, and accountant and getting to, you know, go on that entire adventure with her. And you know, she eventually sold that company. And it's just so cool to see what's happened, you know, for her personally. But then also, you know, five years later circling back and having this opportunity to collaborate again, but in a totally different capacity for both of us. I think it's just, it's just something you cannot predict, like, I could not have anticipated this back then. But I'm so glad that we continue to nurture that relationship, to have something like that happen. Now, you know, and I'll have to keep you guys updated on how that goes.
Hey Ellen, Angel here, owner of Finance In Her Eyes, and I'd love to get your tips and strategies for how you plan a welcome and nurture sequence for cold leads coming from ads with a goal of selling my beta course. What do you like to include when they don't know you? When would you make the first offer? And how long should this sequence be? And do you have any winning tips to get higher conversions? Thanks so much ahead of time.
Hello, Angel, I want to preface this by saying that I am not a conversion copywriter by trade, nor do I consider myself an email marketing expert. From the perspective of teaching email marketing, of course, I utilize email marketing every single day in my business and have for the last five or so years. But to answer your question, from my own personal experience, I think it really depends, like the nurture sequence, I think, depends on where that cold lead is coming from. Like, are they coming onto your list? Because they opted into a lead magnet? And if so, what is the lead magnet? Do they come into your lists? Because, you know, maybe they heard you speak somewhere? Or like, what is the entry point? Right? I will say that nurture sequences are something that we could actually do a lot better with, like, I personally think it's a weaker area in our business.
The only time we've really done like a super formal nurture sequence in our business was when we had our webinar funnel, which was basically a free webinar or masterclass, we called it that people could opt in, could give us their email to watch. And then at the end of that free webinar, we would invite them to join our 12 month mentorship program, which if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you know, we retired that last summer, so it's no longer a program we're selling. But for about three years, it was actually our primary revenue generator. So it was a big deal in our business. And if someone didn't join on the webinar, then afterwards, we enter them into a nurture sequence that ran about 10 to 12 or so emails. And actually, it's kind of funny that you asked this question, because one of the people who submitted a question that I answered, you know, just a few minutes ago, in this episode, Nicola, she actually was a conversion copywriter that helped us write that nurture sequence. So if you need help with that, definitely reach out to Nicola.
But anyways, for for our sequence. We like I said, we had about 10 to 12 emails. And you know, every email was reminding them to join our mentorship and you know, we attacked it from different angles. So it wasn't just a simple like, Hey, are you going to join, like there were, there was more strategy to it. But I think if I had to pull out some pieces to apply to you, not knowing your exact situation of where these cold leads are coming from, but just in general, I think a nurture sequence should accomplish a few things. One, reminding people to actually use the free resource, they signed up for him. And if I remember correctly, the first one to two emails in our nurture sequence, were actually completely dedicated to just making sure that people had actually watched the free webinar that they signed up for, because you would be surprised how many people sign up for things, even free things, especially free things, I should say, that they never even open or use. And it's really no good to you if someone downloads a free resource of yours, and then never actually uses it, right? Because the whole point of that free resource is to give them a taste of what you can offer them and how you can help them and if they don't use it, then they're not able to experience that. So that's something to consider remind them to actually use the thing they signed up for.
Then thinking about what can I do to help them implement and see results faster from set thing? Right? Are there any bonus tips that you can give anything that you can do to help guide them to implement the thing and see results faster? Also thinking about what can I share? That's a complimentary resource to help them amplify their results even further. Because again, for every micro when you get them early on, the more you're building that trust and credibility with them, to want to continue working with you. And then finally, of course, you want to invite them with your nurture sequence to take that next step and offer them a specific solution to continue their progress. swith you. And I think elements that you should include throughout all of these nurture emails are things like stories. Storytelling is so so powerful testimonials are really important to to help people see what is possible for themselves and place themselves in the shoes of people you've already helped. FAQ is really important. And I'm not saying necessarily to like literally list like question answer Question Answer, although you could test that format of email. But moreso thinking about what are the common questions or hesitations someone might be thinking or asking that would prevent them from moving forward? Or making a decision? How can you strategically address those hidden challenges or potential confusion points in your nurture emails to kind of be proactive and get ahead of that right and and make sure you're meeting them where they're at.
So those are the the main pointers, I would think about when structuring your nurture sequence. But also keep in mind, you can leverage free content you've already created. So chances are, if you're in business, you've already created a lot of free content in a lot of different places, right? So think about how you can pull in and link let's say podcast episodes, either your own if you host a show yourself, or guest interviews that you've been on, on other people's shows, how can you bring that into the nurture sequence? How can you repurpose some of the content you've written or created for social media, any blog posts that you've may have been featured in or that you've written yourself? That is a great way to bring in other elements of your content ecosystem into these emails so that you're not creating everything from scratch, right?
And then finally, to address your question about what are some winning tips to get higher conversions from your nurture sequence? I have a couple things. Number one is incentivize replies from your nurture emails to actually start a conversation. So ask them a direct question, or ask them to reply with a specific word or a specific phrase, and put the burden on yourself then to guide that conversation for it. So I find that when you ask someone like, hey, send me this one quick word, if you and then you want to, like, you know, kind of like dangle another carrot of reason for them to want to send that word to you. But it's, it's great because it it doesn't require them to burn extra calories thinking, Okay, what am I going to say, in this email to start that conversation, instead, you're giving them the word to start the conversation, and then you have the responsibility of continuing that conversation. But anytime you can get someone into a conversation, that is really, really helpful.
Also doing things that are kind of more out of the ordinary, high touch more personalized, like sending a voice note or a video, even if the voice note or video isn't actually customed to every single person, because I realized that wouldn't be hard to do in a automated nurture sequence, right? But even if it's just sending a voice note, that's general like it's, you know, the same, everybody hears the same voice note, but just the fact that you kind of changed the medium on them. And it's not all written text. It's a pattern interrupt, right? It makes people perk up and pay attention. I know someone sends me a voicemail, I'm probably going to listen to it in an email just because it's a little bit different. I mean, granted, if it's like a seven minute voicemail, probably not. But if it's like 45 seconds, a minute, yeah, we'll take a moment to see what they have to say just because it's interesting, it intrigues them, right, it may pique their curiosity.
And the final tip I'll add here for higher conversions is offer an expiring coupon, or bonus, really give them that opportunity to get something special that other people publicly don't get, right. It's like, Hey, here's your thank you gift for doing whatever that first action was, that landed you into this email sequence, like just for you being here. Like I'm really thankful. And I want to show you my gratitude by offering you this like extra discount, or this extra bonus if you take action within a certain time. So I think that's something really helpful. And if you want to play more into this idea of like expiring bonuses or discounts. There's actually an amazing guests episode that we just published with a net and Sarah from Thanks for visiting where they talk about two ways they actually did this exact thing, implemented urgency, and, you know, implemented expiring bonuses into their funnel that increased their conversion rates by 50%. And it's such a helpful episode for this particular strategy. So if you want to dive a little deeper into that type of conversation, I'll again link that below in the show notes. So make sure you click over and listen to the episode after this one, if you haven't yet.
Hey, Ellen, how's it going? It's Dijon from Dharma Glow, my instagram handle is @dharmaglow. And I've been following your entrepreneurial journey for quite a while now. I'm impressed by how much you've grown, how many different offerings you have and how gracefully you seem to navigate the process. But my question is, what was the most challenging part of your entrepreneurial journey, something where something did not work out? And how did you handle it? And what did you learn? Thanks so much appreciate the great episodes of the podcast and looking forward to hearing your response.
Hey, Dijon, thank you so much for your kind feedback about our podcasts. And I loved being on your show, too. So thank you for that. I Oh, this is a tough one, you asked a really great question. I think there's so many different challenges that I faced as an entrepreneur. And I could probably spend all day just talking about this one subject, but I think the one that has had the most emotional impact on me, is definitely hiring and firing. Or really like letting go and learning to manage people. I think that is true, actually, for most entrepreneurs, because the skill set of being a great people manager is totally different than this skill set of founding a business of selling, of marketing of whatever your actual skill set is your service. All of those things are different skill sets. And I find that the one that I personally struggle with the most, but also I think a lot of people can agree is definitely the people aspect from team management.
And I think for hiring, you know, the first employee that we ever parted ways with and I want to also caveat this by saying that I'm very lucky that most of our team members have been with us for years, like we have a really long retention, right on average, for our team, like one of the people who, you know, has worked on our team in different capacities, everything from a freelance contractor to full time employee back down to a contractor, because she started her own business, you know, our longest team member has been with me since 2019, which was like my second year in business, it was actually only a few months into the start of my second year. So it really was like a year into my business a year in a few months or so. And so I've been very lucky. For the most part, I do want to say that.
However, I think with the first team member that I ever let go, I did not, I think do enough due diligence in my hiring process. I think I was just so excited to hire someone that I didn't know already. And I kind of just I feel like I rushed the process because I felt like I had to make a decision. Right then in there because we had preliminary applications. And then we like narrowed that down to a select number of interviews. And then we narrowed that down again to I think two or three final interviews. And then you know, we made our hiring decision. But I almost felt like because we got to that point in the process, like after the final interviews, you kind of just feel like, well, I need to make a decision in the next like few days, who is it going to be out of these final candidates. And I don't think I realized at the time that you could get to the end of the final stage of the application and make the decision that you're actually not gonna hire any of them. Like maybe none of them are truly the right fit. Or maybe you need longer than a few days or a week to think on it. And you don't have to be in a rush, right? It's your business, you can decide when is the right time for you to make that decision or take that step.
But I think I was so green, back then to this whole process that I really felt like it had to be done then in there. And I think I rushed into that decision a little bit, or didn't fully do as comprehensive of a job as I could have about really understanding, you know, this person's work preferences and how they communicated and whatnot. Also, you know, on my end, not setting clear enough expectations about their their role, like what was considered a success and not and when they fall short of that how to actually keep someone accountable and not just have it be lip service, right? Like, oh, this is important to me. But if you don't do it, there's no consequence. That creates confusion, which is totally on me as a leader, quite frankly. And then also boundaries, like being very clear about this is okay, and this is not okay, these are the core values of how we operate as a team. And this is not how we operate as a team. So things like that were a struggle things that I've learned over time.
I've also had, you know, the flip side of the experience with hiring an amazing person who was just for the wrong role. Like I think the first person I let go, it was not a great fit overall. But the second person is like a great fit for our team culture. An amazing human being someone I love dearly and is like literally one of my best friends, but just wasn't the right role to help her really flourish. It wasn't suited to her best strength. And it worked for a little while because I think I was still trying to figure out So what was going on in the business, but you know, as your business grew and shifted and change, that role actually became unnecessary, like we didn't even need it. And so at that point, it's like, you're just trying to make something work. Because it's like, you feel like you've made a commitment to a person that you care deeply about. And so that was another hard lesson for me as learning how to navigate business when there is personal connections or personal emotions tied to something. And I think that's what makes it so interesting. When people are like, Oh, you gotta keep it's just business, right? Or like business and personal or separate. I understand on some level there, the truth in that, or the wisdom in that, but I also think it's unfair, maybe not even unfair, but just unrealistic, to assume, or to demand that our personal and our business lives don't ever cross pollinate or mash, because at the end of the day, we are full humans, and business is part of who we are. And you can't really just section off or compartmentalize your life like that, right? Your business impacts your life and your life impacts your business. And so I think, yeah, those definitely the hiring the people, management, that's definitely I think, been my toughest challenge as an entrepreneur. I'm so glad you asked that.
When faced with a new business or entrepreneurial opportunity that brings about some fear, how do you reframe or realign so that you can step through and move forward with that opportunity? Even though you're scared? Thank you, Ellen. You're the best.
Hello, Juliette, you are our final question. By the way, like I mentioned a little earlier, Juliette and Mindi, were both on our podcast as biz besties. They were a duo that came and shared how business friendship and collaboration helped both of them reach their first 10k months in their business in the same month, which was pretty cool. So if you want to listen again to that episode, we'll make sure to link it for you below.
Juliette for your question. Oh, goodness, I actually I'm going to actually link this to another guests that we recently had on the show Kaitlyn Carlson, who is my financial advisor or my wealth manager. And Kaitlyn's episode is great. By the way, it was part of our retirement for entrepreneurs series, all about how different business owners are approaching retirement or setting themselves up for success in retirement. And Kaitlyn was specifically talking about her retirement strategy, which is centered around investing, you know, in the stock market, so kind of a more traditional form of investment. And if you want to listen to that episode, as I've said before, everything we talked about, or reference will be linked in the show notes. So you can go back and listen to Kaitlyn's episode for a little bit more context.
But the piece I want to pull out from my conversation with her, for you, Jules is that I have been taught by Kaitlyn that whenever I want to make an investment in something, she asked me to write an investment thesis. And I'm not talking about like a whole postdoc research paper, right? It could literally be like one paragraph. But basically, the investment thesis is just a summary, showing my own understanding and acceptance of what I hope will come of this investment, and also assessing the risk of what happens if it doesn't pan out that way. Right. So basically, me sharing that I understand the best case scenario, and the worst case scenario, and me being really clear about why I'm choosing to make this investment over something else.
So for example, I recently had to do this, when I decided to, as I referenced a moment ago, invest in a business, that was my first time being an angel investor. And it was a significant chunk of money. So for me to utilize that money to invest into a startup that has no track record or revenue yet, right. That's a huge risk. And so I have to be able to articulate why I would choose to put my money there, versus taking that same amount of money and putting it in a quote unquote, safer vehicle or a vehicle with a track record of over 100 years, the stock market, right and and invest there instead. And so getting really clear on what I wanted from this angel investment, and why I would choose that over the stock market and also understanding, you know, if it doesn't work out the way I hoped, or is this still a sound investment for me and I was able to come to the conclusion that yes, it would be because this and this is the thing that I want you to take away is that every opportunity brings you chances to win in more than one way and oftentimes it's not always monetary.
So like in my instance, if I'm investing in a company, do I want a monetary ROI? Yes, of course I do. Right. But if for some reason, in the worst case scenario, let's say I don't make a single dime off that investment, or I even lose my initial investment, is that considered a fail for me like, would that be a terrible outcome, and for me in that particular situation, it would not be because I in my mind would really just rationalize or have viewed it as paying tuition, to be in the rooms and around the people that I'm going to be doing this business building venture with and getting to learn, and see and experience things that are outside of my industry things that, you know, and this company that invested in is in the E comm like health space, it's has nothing to do with what I do in my business. And it's the type of business that I would never start on my own. So like to have the opportunity to be behind the scenes and really see it built from the ground up is something that I think is worth the cost of the investment, right? Like I would pay that just to have the opportunity to learn that. And so even if I don't make a monetary ROI, it's still worth it to me.
So what I would challenge you to do Jules is think about your opportunities in the same way and really get clear on what is it that I hope in the best case scenario is going to happen if I choose to move forward on this opportunity, but also assessing the risk of what would my reaction be in the worst case scenario? And what I still feel that it was worth it to do this if the worst case scenario happened? And only you know the answer to that. But if the answer is yes, if you feel like it would have brought value to your life in the form of things like wisdom, from new experiences, or connections, new relationships, practice in skill, refinement, or learning a new skill, clarity, because that's a huge thing. A lot of people don't place enough value in knowing what you don't like if you try something, and it does not turn out at all the way you had hoped or wanted to. But you get the clarity from that, that oh my gosh, I never want to do that again, right? Like that is actually something that I really dislike. Maybe you didn't know that before. But now you do that clarity, that process of elimination, and knowing what you don't like so you can avoid it in the future is going to save you so much money and time in the future, that clarity is worth it. Because knowing what you don't like is just as important as learning what you do. So those are all things that you can consider non monetary wins, right?
Some of those things like the connections piece, or the experience piece, or the skill set piece may actually come back to you in the form of monetary ROI at a later point, even if it's not immediate. But if you're just looking at the immediacy of things, even if there isn't a monetary ROI, those are the things may be worth it enough to you in a particular situation to still move forward. So that is what I would suggest you do create your own form of maybe it's not called investment thesis if you're not putting money into this opportunity. But maybe it's your opportunity thesis, right? Write one for every opportunity and then decide from there. Where do you want to go?
Also, as a last note, asking yourself, where's that fear stemming from? Right? Is it a lack of belief in yourself? Is it a lack of belief in the opportunity itself? Or is it a lack of belief in the people or the person that is offering you this opportunity? Because there's really three, three things you have to consider is that you the person, or the thing itself, the offer itself? And then once you know that you can get a little bit more clear about okay, what stories am I telling myself around that thing? Is this fear based in factual reality? Or is it just my belief, or my fear of what may happen? Right? I hope this was helpful. I'm excited to see your opportunity thesis if you choose to write one.
And thank you all so much for asking such thought provoking questions. I didn't expect any less of you. You all are so smart. I'm so lucky, I think every week to get to share this podcast space. With such bright and invested listeners, I truly, truly mean that. And it's just it's a privilege to serve such a high caliber of listeners. So thank you for continuing to support our show. Thank you for celebrating our 200th episode with us and make sure that you are subscribed to our show. Make sure you hit that plus button on Apple podcasts that follow button on Spotify, so that you never miss out on a new episode. See you again next Monday.
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