Explore every episode of the podcast The Business of Authority
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| It’s A Wrap | 22 Apr 2024 | 00:11:52 | |
We talk about where we’re taking the show and how your feedback will impact our next steps. It's your chance to reach out (see the links below) and weigh in! LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| April Dunford - Obviously Awesome REPLAY | 15 Apr 2024 | 00:46:28 | |
Do you know how to position your product or service? Talking Points
“Now I think there’s more of an awareness around positioning.” –AD “Now, I’m booked up 3-4 months in advance, my rates are way higher, I work way less, and my clients are way happier, because I only promise to do this one very narrow thing, but it’s a super valuable thing, and if you’ve got this problem, who else you gonna call?” –AD “If you’re going to make that investment in doing marketing, there should be a call to action in there.” --AD LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| The 5 Things That Happen Right After You Specialize with David C. Baker | 12 Feb 2024 | 00:55:17 | |
NOTE: Rochelle and I (Jonathan) couldn't record last week. Rather than give you nothing (or a TBOA repeat) to listen to, I decided to dig through the Ditching Hourly archives and find an episode that long time fans of TBOA would be sure to enjoy. Here's the info from the Ditching Hourly site: The “Expertise Expert” himself, David C. Baker, joined me on Ditching Hourly to talk about the five things that happen right after you specialize.
Jonathan and David emphasize that niche positioning is critical before you can effectively differentiate, charge value-based pricing, market yourself, or even decide what content to produce. It brings focus to everything that follows.
LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Are You Overdelivering? | 25 Apr 2022 | 00:41:11 | |
Our tendency (especially in proposal situations) to acquiesce to client requests—and how to re-direct that for the good of all. The power and status dynamics surrounding consultants serving clients and what happens if we start treating clients as higher status. How overdelivering can seep into your firm’s practices and where to nip it in the bud. Developing a healthy mindset around service delivery, providing value and decoupling your fees from effort. LINKS Rochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram Jonathan | Daily List | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter Quotables “Your clients are a choice, just like your boss is a choice, but people often forget that walking away is one of the options.”—JS “You could say: ‘Listen, if we take out this step, I can't guarantee the transformation, and therefore I can't do that for you.’”—RM “The way to provide value to your clients is not to be obedient—it's to deliver results.”—JS “The proposal is the dress rehearsal for the engagement.”—RM “If you let prospective clients push you around in the sales process, it should come as no surprise when they push you around during the project.”—JS “The more that you consider yourself low status relative to clients, the worse you're going to feel about it.”—RM “There's so much ‘the customer's always right’ psychology. "Wouldn't it be better to give them more than less?" No, it really wouldn't.”—JS “This is about leveraging what you have—not playing status games that have you overdelivering and creating relationships that don't work for you.”—RM Links Tara McMullin's Instagram piece on over-delivering RESOURCES Rochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram Jonathan | Daily List | Website | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Bad Grammar—Should You Bend The Rules? | 18 Apr 2022 | 00:31:09 | |
Why using perfect grammar in a sales pitch or conversation still won’t guarantee you the deal. How to use grammar and language to communicate and persuade vs. to impress (and the role of status games). Why simplicity makes it easier to get the result you want. The role of grammar in expressing your brand and setting client/audience expectations. Quotables “You could do a sales pitch or a sales interview and use perfect grammar throughout and still not land the deal.”—JS “You adjust your language to meet them where they are.”—RM “You're not looking for an A+ on a book report. You're trying to get someone to change.”—JS “This is really more about simplicity and getting the result that you want.”—RM “It's all about communicating it to them in a way that is going to be digestible and not activate status roles.”—JS “Who's your audience? How do they communicate? What kinds of words are too big and too much?”—RM “If what you want is for the listener or the reader or the viewer to do something, then the most important thing is producing that action.”—JS “Language is part of the toolkit of a consultant or anyone who's trying to make transformational change in an audience.”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| When It’s Time To Un-Stick Yourself | 11 Apr 2022 | 00:36:31 | |
Getting yourself the endorphin rush from physically getting up and going outside or meeting a friend. How to keep pushing the envelope even as you’re doing the routine things that make your business run. Why that feeling of putting your “baby” out there can feel crazy-scary—and how to do it anyway. How to tell the difference between when you’re laying groundwork for your next thing or just burning daylight. LINKS Rochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram Jonathan | Daily List | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter Quotables “It was so much fun…I noticed that I felt like this total endorphin rush, I was in the best mood.”—JS “I've so trained myself into this virtual be efficient work from zoom/have phone conversations mode that it was almost like upsetting the apple cart to go to an in-person meeting.”—RM “It's not too bad to have an idea and then, like roughly a quarter later, launch it.”—JS “It doesn't mean that we don't double down on the things we're good at, but we just keep pushing that envelope on some level.”—RM “Talk to people like: ‘Hey, I've got three ideas for my next workshop I'm going to launch. Which one seems the most exciting to you?’”—JS “I'm waiting for somebody to write and go ‘Yeah, this is a stupid idea. And I don't ever want to hear from you again.’”—RM “If you can introduce really smart, fun people into the process (of getting outside), that sounds like a really good routine to get into.”—JS “There's always going to be those periods (of laying groundwork), but the ideal is that they're moving you towards something else, even if you're pulling your hair out while you're going through them.”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| When Your Book Is Last | 04 Apr 2022 | 00:34:34 | |
Why book as business card is not the book that will still be relevant and valuable in 20-30 years. How to introduce your book content to ideal readers so they can help you use the right language, examples and stories. Using your book idea to build a tribe of support for your eventual launch. Positioning your book so it has a built-in base of readers—and is attractive to potential publishers. The benefits from teaching your material before you ever start writing the actual book. Quotables “I think this is more reliable path to write a book that could theoretically be still getting read 20 years from now.”—JS “If you're going to pitch your book to a publisher, they want to know: how does this book position against these other (competitive) books?”—RM “What you want is feedback from people who are hearing your stuff for the first time.”—JS “You need a launch team—you need a bunch of people supporting your book to help make it successful.”—RM “They might tell me my baby's ugly, but that's what I want. I don't wanna write the book and then find out that my baby's ugly.”—JS “It (a webinar) gives you a lot of experience with talking about the book and getting comfortable, listening and synthesizing what they're saying.”—RM “If people do show up for your webinar, you're getting a head start on your marketing language for the book itself.”—JS “For the kind of book that we're talking about, you've gotta have some other people invested in its success—where they get excited about it, they want to share it.”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Get Different with Mike Michalowicz | 28 Mar 2022 | 00:26:54 | |
How books have been a pivotal source of his authority (and a substantial slice of his overall revenue). The role of his communities in concepting and testing book ideas—and why members who aren’t super fans are especially valuable. Why incremental and real-life experiments are so critical to testing new ideas. The value of going for small wins—even when complexity is the “better” solution. Why being better is not enough. LINKS Rochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram Jonathan | Daily List | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter Quotables “The stuff I put in my books is the same stuff I share on stage or on a podcast. But they're devalued when we hear the voice, it's eh, but once it's in a book, it becomes biblical for some reason.”—MM “Why I’ve written so many (books) is I am working on any number at any given time, usually three to four in the works.”—MM “The book is the starting point for lead flow, but it's the end point of the knowledge. It's the best of what I have accumulated.”—MM “I use my subscribers and say, “Hey, we're going to concept—who's willing to try this out?” But I will, to some degree, intentionally exclude people who’ve tried stuff out in the past, trying to always approach new people and learn from them.”—MM “What a lot of people do in their writings is they make it so it's not palatable and you lose the reader before you even get a chance to serve them.”—MM “All my books are based upon this concept of quick, easy deployment.”—MM “Being better is not enough. But many of us rely on that, we say we are better. Why don't we gain more business? We have to be noticeable.”—MM “The only experience people have with us before doing business with us is our marketing. And if our marketing is inconsistent with the actual brand experience, there's a mistrust that's going to happen.”—MM LINKS https://mikemichalowicz.com/ LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Ask Us Anything 5 | 21 Mar 2022 | 00:42:16 | |
When moving from freelancing to consulting, how should I approach building my website portfolio? What kinds of best practices do you suggest? How do I make sure I don’t lose my technical edge as I transition to more strategic consulting? I’m not comfortable traveling or mingling with people whose vaccination and cautiousness status I don’t know—and yet it feels like everyone in my industry is anxious to attend events again. Is it possible to grow my authority business 100% virtually? I’ve built a YouTube audience of 2,000 and an email list of about 1,000 by sharing a passion of mine. While I love doing it, it’s eating up more of my time and I’d like to monetize this—where should I start? Quotables “Encourage the client to share specific benefits—probably with numbers—some kind of absolute or relative numbers of the improvement that they attribute to your contribution.”—JS “Think of your website, not as static, but as a living breathing thing.”—RM “You can go into the lab and when there's something big—something game-changing—that enables new things for you that your clients care about.”—JS “It's a little bit like riding a bicycle. You can not have ridden one for 10 years, but when you get back on you remember how to steer, you remember where your feet go. You know what to do.”—RM “Think of someone who you perceive as an authority. Have you ever met them? Probably not. Have you even been to a conference where they were? Probably not.”—JS “You can become an authority pretty much entirely virtually IF you design your business model to match that.”—RM “It gets down to who needs, who stands to benefit the most from your superpower and how different do they perceive you to be in terms of the options for solving this problem.”—JS “When talking to people who are already engaged in your worldview, they've signed on. And they're going to tell you what they want, not just from anybody to solve the problem, but what they want from you.”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| The Dark Side Of Referrals | 14 Mar 2022 | 00:33:04 | |
Why relying on referrals is a passive strategy with few controls—and a dangerous hidden cost. The difference between referrals and word of mouth from your authority-building efforts. The one exception where a referral system can be exactly the right approach (and it applies to a VERY small slice of experts). Why investing in broader market moves (e.g. publishing and speaking) will bring you business faster and more reliably than courting referrals. LINKS Rochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram Jonathan | Daily List | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter Quotables “I'm like a control freak. I don't want to depend on maybe somebody sends someone my way…”—JS “I always help people if I can, but there's a limit to what you can do for any one person before you have to turn the meter on.”—RM “Like the difference between a hunting model and a gardening model, the word of mouth authority marketing is a gardening model.”—JS “Referrals are a long-term play—and they’re so uncontrollable.”—RM “I cannot stand this feeling of just hoping the phone rings.”—JS “If you're operating on an old model (and you haven’t positioned yourself well), depending on referrals is going to get worse.”—RM “It's that word of mouth that I would rather have, and it is more predictable than referrals—it’s more like tomatoes coming out of the garden.”—JS “There's such a difference in somebody who comes to you because of the authority that you've built—they come to you basically pre-sold.”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Does Appearance Matter? | 07 Mar 2022 | 00:49:11 | |
Aligning your appearance—how you dress and style yourself—with your brand of authority. Why what matters most is what makes you feel confident and strong. The dangers in making assumptions about your audience’s judgement (or listening too closely to critics). How to match your exteriors with who you are, how you feel confident and the audience that you want to attract. When—and how—to call in the experts. Quotables “If people don't like your vibe, then okay—they don't get the joke. Go find someone who does.”—JS “There's also a sense of privilege that comes with this. If you're a white male, it's easier to say, oh, it doesn't matter what I wear, but if you're female or you're a person of color, it's a lot more complex.”—RM “It's almost like a game. Can I be so good and deliver results that are so outstanding that no one cares what I'm wearing?”—JS “It's not that there is this one size fits all look that you need to have in order to be an authority. It's a combination of what you want for yourself—what makes you feel powerful—and what helps attract the audience that you most want to attract.”—RM “They weren't looking for a guy to come in jeans and blaze orange sneakers and a black t-shirt so it was just a bad fit.”—JS “Once I hit a certain level, I was like, I don't care…I'm going to do that. And I don't care if anybody likes it or not.”—RM “If you don't know what it is that would make you feel confident…just get an expert—just like you're an expert at something.”—JS “It's finding the match between who you are, how you feel confident and the audience that you want to attract.”—RM Links LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Time ≠ Money | 28 Feb 2022 | 00:34:34 | |
Getting over any residual guilt from not charging based on your effort (“I can’t charge them that much—it wouldn’t be fair/right/honorable”). Why the best clients don’t really care about how much time you spend serving them—and what they do care about instead. How to begin shifting your sales conversations toward high value outcomes and away from time. The relationship between the altitude you’re operating at and the time it takes you to provide value. Quotables “Through conversation with the people for whom you are making the thing…you can think of it like a gift. It's like here, I made this for you.”—JS “That's a whole mindset shift, that all of a sudden you're going to be paid for access…it can even feel like highway robbery at first.”—RM “You should buy the most expensive one (mastermind) you can afford so that you will be slotted in with other people who are at your level. ”—JS “Price telegraphs value.”—RM “The reason it's so difficult for freelancers to value price is because they've never had a conversation with their past clients about what value they added.”—JS “When you understand what your work is going to produce, you can work differently on the project. You can work at a higher level, you can be more effective, you can ask better questions.”—RM “You can increase your altitude, the level at which you engage with the client…and almost invariably it's less work.”—JS “Everything that we're talking about in this episode is moving you up that ladder so that you're selling your brains not your hands. “—RM RESOURCES Rochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram Jonathan | Daily List | Website | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Why You Don’t Have Imposter Syndrome | 21 Feb 2022 | 00:39:37 | |
Why, if you’re not feeling like an imposter, you’re not “working hard enough” (a Seth Godin quote from episode 100). Facing the fear—and the resistance—and moving beyond a self-limiting label. How working to become an expert can raise imposter feelings (and what to do). Shifting your mindset to treat your work as an experiment. The benefits of focusing on the people you’re serving vs. your own fears and resistance. Quotables “If we could deconstruct what people mean when they say imposter syndrome…it's like fake. I'm a fake, because I don't know if this is going to work or I don't know if this is the right way to do it. I don't know how to do this thing.”—JS “The thing is it's really tempting to say, ‘Oh, I have imposter syndrome. I just can't do that.’ And so I don't like the label.”—RM “If this sounds like tough love at all, it is because we don't want you in 10 years to be still stuck in the same place.”—JS “The signal you’re becoming an expert is when you realize that you couldn't possibly know everything: ‘How do I niche down in the area of expertise that’s most intriguing? How do I think about this?’”—RM “Imposter syndrome is probably that you don't know if it's going to work. You're doing an experiment. It's not like scientists are imposters because they don't know what's going to happen at the end of the experiment.”—JS “The second we turn our focus away from ourselves and onto the audience, everything's easier. Because you're focused on them and getting them the things that they want.”—RM “You're not here to be perfect or better than someone else—you're here to help. And if you focus on that, you don't have to be perfect. You just need to be good enough.”—JS “Maybe it's work it till you make it instead of fake it till you make it.”—RM Links LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Experimenting for Fun + Profit | 05 Feb 2024 | 00:58:14 | |
When to shake things up by trying an experiment in your business. Why it’s worth challenging your own perceptions and/or the norms of a popular platform. Creating your own “book central” to capture everything you need to help with marketing and sales of your product in one place. One surprising outcome of this experiment (and why it will keep leveraging itself indefinitely). How starting with a niche book can expand your audience well beyond your intended target. LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Trusting Your Voice | 14 Feb 2022 | 00:44:00 | |
Why a big chunk of trusting your voice is being brave enough to let your “weirdness” out so you can find your tribe. The value in being authentically consistent and how to course correct as you go. Learning to keep playing your game, in your style, no matter where you are and what you’re doing. Why trusting your voice is an iterative process—and how to ensure you’re consistently reinforcing who you are. LINKS Rochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram Jonathan | Daily List | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter Quotables “I definitely let my inner weirdo out.”—JS “Part of this is just learning to trust that your weirdness is compatible with other people's weirdness.”—RM “What's the best part of you that's going to show up and be really thoughtful and consistent?”—JS “You play your game, your style.”—RM “Sometimes your inner weirdo is gonna preclude you being involved in certain things, but it's much more common for the opposite to be true.”—JS “Somebody else can’t empower you. You empower yourself to put your voice out there.”—RM “You’ve gotta find and hone and refine your voice.”—JS “When you get to the point where it's almost like the opposite of imposter syndrome, you trust that you have something to say.”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Breaking Rules | 07 Feb 2022 | 00:44:37 | |
Why breaking the rules in a surprising way is so important. Reaping the benefits of surprise—and how to figure out which rules are made for breaking. Balancing your strengths and available time with the highest impact moves. How to think about your rule breaking so you’re not copying someone else, but building your unique brand. Quotables “Some of my favorite strategies really do have a surprising piece to them, which is that I break a rule.”—JS “‘I would never bother my audience with daily emails’—if you’re ‘bothering’ them, why send it at all?”—RM “If you're known by name it's because you probably broke new ground, you broke some rules, some style practices and came up with something new and different that connected with people.”—JS “One of the things that makes me crazy is automated content based on SEO. They look like they're written by robots.”—RM “If you need an extra five hours a week, delete all social media from your life.”—JS “There's no reason to feel like, oh, you must have music on your podcast. As we've proven.”—RM “The reason I decided against that (using email salutations) was because I don't send emails like that to my brothers. And that was the feeling I wanted people to have when they got an email from me.”—JS “You can get sucked into social media, commenting about things that aren’t building your brand.”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Profit With Purpose | 31 Jan 2022 | 00:39:56 | |
Why you need to answer this question: how much profit is enough for you? How to work your way up the difficulty scale to find clients with bigger, more expensive problems so that you can work less. The myth behind doing hard work—and how to work less without guilt. Making an impact with your ideal audience that leaves a memorable footprint (and builds a sustainable business). LINKS Rochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram Jonathan | Daily List | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter Quotables “Assuming you're comfortable with some profit, the question is how much?”—JS “What's that expensive problem that's inside your big idea, your revolution, that you can solve?”—RM “You can find people who are currently in a situation where they would write a big fat check to someone like you.”—JS “You're gradually working your way up the difficulty scale to find clients with bigger problems or more expensive problems so that you can work less.”—RM “If you only feel okay doing really hard work, then what does that look like in your future? You're dooming yourself to a life of toil.”—JS “The key is delivering huge value. You have to keep asking: are you moving the needle on your revolution by doing the work you're doing?”—RM “People do stuff all the time that is not in their best interest financially, for other reasons and one of them would be purpose.”—JS “It's not just about the money—it's about impact. It's about your footprint.”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Experimenting for Fun and Profit | 24 Jan 2022 | 00:43:13 | |
Why raising your price(s) doesn’t always bring you better clients—and how to keep pushing the envelope to find the right balance. How to raise—or lower—your prices without feeling manipulative or doing a bait and switch with your audience. The value of being vulnerable and asking for input (with the side benefit of getting you deeply wired into your audience). Joining high-end masterminds (or building your own) to solicit peer feedback and ideas. Getting in the regular habit of experimenting to grow your audience and your business faster. Quotables “We make an assumption that the higher price points we have, the better clients we're going to get and that’s not always true.”—RM “If you can't bring yourself to lower your prices back down (when a higher price isn’t working), cut the offer.”—JS “It's dangerous when we assume that the blocks we have in our own head are in the minds of our clients.”—RM “That's why the metaphor is a (product/service) ladder. Cause they can climb up it as you give them success on the lower rungs.”—JS “The only way to know that you’re wired into your audience is to ask them, because otherwise we put our own assumptions on our audience and we could be a hundred percent wrong.”—RM “One of the coolest things about running your own business and thinking of it like a business is that you can do this (experimenting) stuff.”—JS “Consider a mastermind that has other people who've experienced your kind of growth—getting peer comments is hugely helpful.”—RM Links LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Systems Gravitational Pull | 17 Jan 2022 | 00:28:56 | |
Why the more you invest—time, money and processes—in any system the more it starts to limit your thinking. The value of choosing your apps/vendors wisely and then going all in for the future vs. frequent platform switching. Protecting yourself (and your business) if one of your systems goes bad. How to think about changing and communicating systems when you have clients and buyers using them regularly. LINKS Rochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram Jonathan | Daily List | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter Quotables “The more code I build up, the more I've invested in any particular system, the more it limits my thinking.”—JS “When my VA of 10 years left…I started to relook at and rethink every single function. Had she not left, I would not have done that.”—RM “I am super choosy about which platforms I'm going to go all in on on them. But man, is it frustrating when something changes out from underneath you.”—JS “The thing that makes some of these apps so wonderful is how comprehensive they are. You just have to ensure that you're protected if something really bad happens.”—RM “When I pick a platform, I just suck it up. And I'm like, okay, the thing's going to evolve and I'm just going to deal with it as it evolves. But also it means that I really learn how to use it…so that I'm really getting my money out of it.”—JS “You can't over-communicate in those situations (where your clients experience your systems changes).”—RM “If we're talking about a gravitational pull of a system and you've got people in the system, there's no silver bullet to making changes.”—JS “If you've got five people in a group and you change your systems, it's probably not a big deal. If you have 500, it is a big deal. All the more reason to pick the systems you want to invest in at the very beginning.”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Kicking Off 2022 | 10 Jan 2022 | 00:47:26 | |
The difference between objectives, strategy and tactics—and why the possibility of failure is essential when designing a workable strategy. How to give your tactics the optimal amount of time to assess whether they are working—or not. Making the decision on how you want to impact your ideal audience—and baking it into your plans. How to think about growth so that you’re building a business that plays to your genius zone. Quotables “The strategy should change the most slowly. Your strategy should…have some grit and sticktuitiveness about it, but the tactics are disposable.”—JS “Once you position yourself (then you know what revolution you're going to be leading, who's your ideal client and buyer), then you can start creating a strategy to develop the products and services to monetize what you're trying to do.”—RM “Strategy is a concise high-level approach to achieving the objective by pitting strengths against weaknesses, usually in a surprising way.”—JS “Sometimes we give up on tactics too soon. If we agree that strategy is a non-trivial amount of time, then when it comes to tactics, you have to give it enough time…to prove whether it works or not.”—RM “You are making a bet that this approach is going to work and if you're wrong, then you know it's not going to work.”—JS “Most of us feel actualized when we're helping other people. It's not really about, oh, I want to go to the spa every day…it's about how can I help the people I care most about?”—RM “Whatever the tactic is, you need to give it a reasonable amount of time for how long it's going to take for the tomatoes to start growing.”—JS “By designing the business so that it fits you, you can get to whatever income level it is that you decide you want to go for.”—RM Accidental Creative Episode with Michael Bungay Stanier LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Systems, Habits and Creating Time | 03 Jan 2022 | 00:48:12 | |
What insights your current behaviors, systems and habits can give you into creating more time. The value of time boxing—limiting the period (and the amount of head space) you’ll devote to a particular thing. Using habit stacking to create efficient ways to complete “must do” tasks. How to use consistent habit tracking—aka streaks—to motivate you to stay on course. When to buy back time—and overcoming your mental blocks that keep you from doing it. Quotables “Checklists or SOPs lift a weight off of you. It's this cognitive weight where…if you just do it in an order—the stuff that's going to happen every day—it gives you more freedom.”—JS “It’s like Steve jobs wearing his black turtleneck and jeans every day. He didn't want to dedicate brain space to something that didn't matter.”—RM “Time boxing helps quite a bit with the good enough slash perfectionism thing. Like the more you work on it, the better it will feel like it's getting therefore it becomes infinite.”—JS “A little trick that I found that works really well—if morning is a good time for you to do detailed work—push your lunch as late as you can.”—RM “I'm all about streaks. It's in my DNA to not want to break a streak.”—JS “We can buy back time by hiring people to do things that we believe must be done. And it's not just about the business. It might be that you hire somebody to mow your lawn or buy your groceries.”—RM “One thing is just to get rid of the things you don't need to do.”—JS “There are people who will think nothing of spending a hundred thousand dollars in their business, but…can't have somebody mow their lawn. ‘I can't spend $10, but I can spend a hundred thousand.’ Sometimes the $10 will give you more value.”—RM RESOURCES Rochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram Jonathan | Daily List | Website | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Predictions for 2022 | 13 Dec 2021 | 01:00:39 | |
How live events will change (think thoughtful curation vs. large scale impersonal gatherings). The wider presence and impact of women and people of color in the authority space. The trend of personality—how far can authorities go to express their views? How experts and authorities will differentiate their products and services—and more. Quotables “We would have these big live events…with a lot of wasted time, wasted energy and lost opportunities to connect with people. The trend will be that because we will have fewer live events, they matter more.”—RM “I could imagine an increase in these sorts of small, highly-focused off the grid fishing village retreats.”—JS “I believe that more of the new businesses that are growing in the authority space will not only be run by women, but people of color.”—RM “I think it's so much more fun to learn from people who aren't afraid to like make predictions that might not come true.”—JS “It's really about standing up for your values, your vision for where the world goes. You've got a code…a set of beliefs that tie into how you serve clients.”—RM “I think going around and being in people's ear buds on a regular basis creates this asymmetric intimacy.”—JS “We might have products and services at both ends (high touch/high price vs. low touch/low price), but we're not going to have much in the middle.”—RM “The low touch end of the spectrum is all about productizing and packaging up your expertise…it's just so much easier to sell. It's easier to attract leads. It's easier to close deals.”—JS LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Selling Results | 06 Dec 2021 | 00:46:44 | |
Why a focus on outcomes naturally changes your sales conversations and how you think about delivery. How becoming the client yourself helps crystallize the importance of outcomes vs. inputs. Changing your mental model away from valuing time spent to the outcomes your clients are seeking. Becoming the Mercedes option where your clients happily pay big premiums for your reliably transformative outcomes. How using an outcomes focus in the sales process also weeds out undesirable clients. LINKS Rochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram Jonathan | Daily List | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter Quotables “You change the way that you talk to the client, so that you're finding out more about what is the transformation they want instead of how much work is this going to be for me to execute.”—JS “They (the billers of time) just have to invert their thinking. And it's funny because once you really see it from the other side, it's hard to unsee it.”—RM “I fundamentally believe deep down that the majority of software projects go 2x over the initial estimate because nobody talks at the beginning about what the success metric is.”—JS “It's just all in what you want, what you value and what the person is going to deliver (when you’re hiring a consultant).”—RM “You found someone who you considered to be a Mercedes option—like a premium luxury purchase—and you just believed that it would work and it did work and it didn't need to take a lot of time. In fact, the less time it takes the better.”—JS “There are some clients who really don't want to be challenged. They don't want to have those tough questions asked and those are not good clients.”—RM “It's like finding the mission for the project and then it's all about everybody's on the same mission—you've got something to align everybody around.”—JS “Going from time spent to outcomes is messing with somebody's mental model—it's really hard to imagine that someone will value the outcome only and not care about the inputs.”—RM RESOURCES Rochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram Jonathan | Daily List | Website | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Productized Services | 29 Nov 2021 | 00:40:23 | |
Using this as a path out of hourly billing and/or simplifying your sales and marketing while juicing your revenue. Why offering productized services forces you to get really tight on your delivery, messaging and outcomes. How you can use a productized service offering to test drive a more laser-focused positioning for your entire business. We share a host of real life examples you can check out to see how it’s done. Quotables “Productized services are like a path out of hourly billing for people who are used to delivering services by the hour.”—JS “We need to not underestimate the power of making your marketing and selling simpler.”—RM “If you're scared of positioning your overall business in a laser-focused way, you could just have the one (productized service) offering.”—JS “Do not underestimate the power of using emotion to identify that final outcome to the client from your productized service.”—RM “II you're embarrassed by your website, how do you think that might be trickling into your behavior and your actions?”—JS “When you start experimenting with productized services, you might find that it gets you into a higher level problem than you'd been solving.”—RM Links
LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Curating Your Learning Habit | 29 Jan 2024 | 00:47:40 | |
When to consider learning from a 1-1 coach vs. a group experience—and how to think about when an investment makes sense. Building your own network of peers—through community participation or seeking out 1-1 relationships. Why guided experimentation works for so many soloists in the expertise space (and how to find those experiences). How to match your learning investments (time and money) with your business stage. Learning from your marketplace, including having regular conversations with your potential clients and buyers. LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Overcoming Set Points and Plateaus | 22 Nov 2021 | 00:42:17 | |
The role of your mindset in breaking through set points and powering past income plateaus. Deciding when it’s time to change your revenue model to provide your business with greater leverage—and larger earnings potential. How to think about and reframe limiting beliefs that keep you from making big leaps in your business. When your past experiences are powering decisions today that don’t serve you or your business growth (and how to re-wire them). LINKS Rochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram Jonathan | Daily List | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter Quotables “There's a certain point where you've found all the leverage you're going to find with this model and you need to find a bigger lever.”—JS “I'd like to be a best-selling author. But guess what? If I don't write a book, it's not going to happen.”—RM “One of the things that can be the moment of a huge breakthrough for people is the first time they say no to a client.”—JS “Maybe there's a voice in your head that says you don't deserve any better than this. That this is the best you get.”—RM “Lightning round of three limiting beliefs: I can never call myself an expert if I’m not the world’s greatest; Oh, these are all great ideas, but they won't work; I can't stop coding because then I wouldn't be able to consult.”—JS “There are all these different experiences that impact how we think about money and therefore what we allow ourselves to achieve in our business.”—RM “You can go back and find out what your particular contribution was worth to the client and then try and extrapolate into the future. So when you talk to someone who's similar, you can get better at guesstimating what your contribution might be worth to this kind of a client.”— JS “Once you're past the bootstrap stage and your business is truly launched, then there are certain things that are going to move you faster. You have to believe your business is worth investing in them.”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Book Publishing Listener Q&A | 15 Nov 2021 | 01:08:15 | |
The two main reasons to write a book for your expertise or authority business. The pros and cons of self-publishing vs. seeking out a traditional publisher. Positioning and pricing your self-published book—and whether to sell it on your website and/or amazon. How to find and vet the right editor(s) for your situation. The role of e-books vs. physical books and why you probably want both. Quotables “The two main reasons to write a book for business: there's the 300 page business card and there's the revenue stream… it really helps going into it to know which one you're writing.”—JS “You might make different strategic and tactical decisions depending on whether you want direct or indirect revenue from your book .”—RM “If you want to reach a broader audience, then it does make sense to go through a more traditional publishing channel or at least something closer to that.”—JS “The irony (with traditional publishers) is when you want them, when you need them, they usually don't want you—because they want you to have enough name recognition that you're helping to drive the sales of the book.”—RM “When I published Hourly Billing Is Nuts, since it was so much about pricing, I was like, I want to price this right. And I don't want it to be next to a whole bunch of direct competitors that are cheaper. It'd be like putting myself on Upwork.”—JS “I wanted really good editors because all of my (client) book experiences up to now have been with really top-notch people at big publishing houses and I wanted somebody as good as that for my book.”—RM “I think everybody should write a book—the experience is fabulous. It's so good to have to think that hard about something and have a project that's that big.”—JS “How hard is it to create a physical book on Amazon? It is so freaking easy if you're already doing the e-book on amazon.”—RM RELATED LINKS LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| The Authority Code | 08 Nov 2021 | 00:46:05 | |
How “selling” your work completely changes once you’ve positioned yourself and monetized your expertise. Building your business in “white space” and a new way to think about your big idea (hint: we’re talking revolution). Why your genius zone is a pivotal element of your authority positioning. Rethinking your business and revenue model to more closely match your positioning (and your genius zone). Getting comfortable with publishing—testing your point of view—until you’re ready to start playing on other people’s platforms. Quotables “If you like this show, you're going to love the book.”—JS “What thinking about your big idea as a revolution does for you is it allows you to think bigger than you would otherwise—as in who am I to think this big?”—RM “I just see it as we're fellow travelers, we're on the same mission. We're in the same revolution and I don't care who leads it, as long as someone's doing it.”—JS “It's so important that you discover your genius zone. We started our own businesses—we took a lot of risk. Why shouldn't we be doing what we really love to do?”—RM “Once you flip your mindset from I do rails or I do price consulting to I know how to build rails apps—then you can start disconnecting your expertise from your labor.”—JS “You're going to start with an email list, but then the question becomes, what should you do first in terms of publishing? I like writing and podcasting because they feed each other and they've got long tails.”—RM “Sales conversations are always fun, ‘cause they’re very consultative—it’s like I’m getting to know them.”—JS “Selling authority is three things: it's publishing, it’s developing your authority circle and it's having sales conversations. It's selling without selling.” –RM Links: Rochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram Jonathan | Daily List | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Profit Matters | 01 Nov 2021 | 00:33:47 | |
Why profit is the most important measure of how your business is doing—even when profits are not your purpose. The difference between relying on vanity metrics and your bottom line to show you how you’re doing. Measuring impact vs. measuring revenue and what you need to build so they grow in tandem. How to avoid short-term thinking while still keeping your eye on your profit line. The value of reliability in your profit generation—and what that buys you in your business and your ability to make an impact. Quotables “You can’t buy Cheerios with likes on Twitter.”—JS “My concern sometimes with these giant lists is that they don't have this commonality in the audience that is going to help you grow your business.”—RM “You can measure impact. And that's a great thing to measure, but you can't eat it for dinner.”—JS “Once you run the long-term profit numbers, then you can make a wise-for-you investment decision. This is a good idea, a bad idea, or I'm not sure. Maybe I need to test it more.”—RM “I always notice when businesses basically tank because some cost cutter becomes the CEO—like the COO or the CFO becomes the CEO—and they stop investing in innovation.”—JS “You can't cut your way to innovation. You can't cut your way to being the industry leader. It just doesn't work that way.”—RM “If you're going to call yourself a business, then you need to have profits. Even though profits aren't your purpose, they still need to be there.”—JS “Until there's some kind of reliability built into your revenue model, your business is really hard to sustain.”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Leveling Up Your Systems | 25 Oct 2021 | 00:34:35 | |
A new way to think about big projects based on how you work best—and the value of absolute clarity with your plan. What happens when you fall into flow on a big project that needs room to breathe. The unintended consequences of changing your environment. How to find the system(s) that will work for you—and why you don’t need to worry if they look entirely different than what works for someone else. Adopting the mindset of a creator—and aligning it with your daily habits. LINKS Rochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram Jonathan | Daily List | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter Quotables “It's as if you're going into battle, but you're going to battle against yourself.”—RM “I felt like I was on this path that I had wanted to be on for so long and I was finally doing it. So it was its own energy source.”—RM “I left this environment where I had lots of uninterrupted time. Switched to an environment where I'm interrupted all the time and didn't recognize or take into consideration the effect that would have on things that I already had in motion.”—JS “I don't want to stop. I want to just keep it, once you get into the zone and get over that resistance, fear, and you're in the zone, it's like a drug.”—JS “Once you have the boundary, you can all work with and around the boundary. But if it's not set, we're not going to work around it.”—RM “The thing that does motivate me is streaks and being able to tick off a check box next to the thing I was supposed to do today.”—JS “We all deserve to be able to carve out a space to produce this kind of work. It goes with the authority space.”—RM “It's a big undertaking and it's not something that you can just imagine is going to work itself out.”—JS LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Designing Your Authority Circle | 18 Oct 2021 | 00:34:35 | |
What’s an Authority Circle and why you need one. The role of your rat pack, apostles and tribal leaders and how to enlist them in your cause. Earning apostles for your work and connecting with influential tribal leaders. How selling your authority becomes more focused and simple once you clearly identify your circle. How to think about your Authority Circle and enlist them in spreading your vision, even if you’ve always thought of them as competitors. Quotables “It's a wild process, writing a book. It's a marathon for sure.”—JS “The big problem that an authority circle solves is you have somebody else working on your behalf all the time.”—RM “A good friend will bail you out of jail. A great friend will be in jail with you.”—JS “Apostles are the people who are spreading the word on your vision, the revolution you're seeing for the world, because they believe.”—RM “The thing with the apostles that is different than super fans is apostles will occasionally challenge you in a good, polite, constructive way.”—JS “You're looking for a way to take what you know, and apply it to the tribal leader’s specific audience.”—RM “If you're really thinking about making a big cultural change, you better have these apostles and tribal leaders who - at least partially - agree with the mission.”—JS “When you have your authority circle, what you're doing in a very small but important way is that you're connecting; you’re building connective tissue with all these different people and they're going to help you.”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Sales Meeting = Sample Engagement | 11 Oct 2021 | 00:41:26 | |
How to set expectations and boundaries in the initial sales meeting (and why that’s critical to the progression of your project). Why the client isn’t always right or always wrong—and how to adopt a mindset that allows you to keep the outcomes front and center. Finding socially acceptable ways to push back when the client(s) starts leading down a path that doesn’t serve the outcome. Getting to the point where you believe you don’t need this client, this project—and why having a safety net is crucial. Why sales interviews are auditions for the client where you get to be the casting director. LINKS Rochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram Jonathan | Daily List | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter Quotables “You've got two different kinds of expertise that are coming together in this sales interview to see if there's a good fit between where you want to go.”—JS “You're teaching them (in the sales meeting) how to think strategically about your area of expertise and how it applies to their business.”—RM “You want to open their eyes to the fact that there's a reason they're calling an expert and it could be that they made a fundamentally bad decision way up front.”—JS “Our job is to hold the vision for the project…When you do that, it gets a lot easier to deal with things that are really more of a personality conflict, or a power play.”—RM “It's about finding socially acceptable ways to say no—to push back. And it's all in their best interest…it's all about the success of the project.”—JS “You have to get to that point where you say okay, if this is not the right fit client, I'm not going to do this.”—RM “These sales interviews—you could think of them as an audition for the client. That's how I look at them, like an audition for the client, which frames it with me in the judge seat.”—JS “Everybody needs a safety net. I promise you the second you truly get to that headspace, your meetings start to change and you get better.”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Guest Highlights From 200 Episodes | 04 Oct 2021 | 00:51:12 | |
The definition of authority and the challenges in building it. How to think about and price different products and services based on how they contribute to your overall business model. The challenges of bringing new ideas to market and developing sustainable habits to keep growing your business. The role of trust in building authority (and your business). Why clients value outcomes above all else. Quotables “The McKinsey trap is you're getting paid X number of dollars at McKinsey, and you realize they're marking you up for X. So you quit McKinsey and go out on your own and you can't even get paid a quarter.”—Seth Godin “I don't worry so much about the revenue from the books. What I look at is how it supports the other things that I do. I'm being paid to do it (webinars) because I'm an expert in this field. And so I have an entire business model that is set on giving away stuff for free and making good money doing it”—Jill Konrath “I only want to release things that seem like they can gain traction quickly without putting a ton of work or doing like paid acquisition for them.”—Paul Jarvis “We do not rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems.”—James Clear “You should see how picky I am about taking on a client. It's crazy…I was just doing the generic thing that all clients look like good clients. But now I do this really specialized thing. And I only take you on if you fit my target perfectly.”—April Dunford “The I, the last factor in the numerator (of the trust equation) stands for intimacy, which is an interesting and unusual word in the business context, but it goes to…do I feel safe and secure sharing things with you?”—Charles Green “You have to bring rigor to it (your passion business). You have to bring discipline. You have to work really hard. Honestly, a lot of it can be less easy because when you're doing something you really care about, it's going to be maybe even harder than doing a job that someone else told you to do.”—Adam Davidson “Having a small child, I said, I cannot take any more unpaid work. I have no more time left in my calendar. So I put a call out for sponsors (of my podcast). I asked, four people to sponsor the show, all four said, yes. And that's the moment when I looked at my husband and I said, so people are paying me money to do a thing.”—Sarah Peck “It really is the outcomes that people want. That's the way it is with all transformations. Inputs don't matter—only outcomes.”—Joe Pine LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Eliminating Friction | 27 Sep 2021 | 00:52:42 | |
When outsourcing is freeing vs. when it simply adds more friction to your life. How to tell the difference between good friction and bad friction (hint: it’s not the same for everyone). Why it makes perfect sense to outsource critical functions that are not core to your business—think taxes, legal, payroll. The surprising benefits from documenting what you do and how you do it. The human side of heavy outsourcing—and how to decide if it’s for you.
Quotables “I don't really care about search. I care about word of mouth. So if people aren't searching for my name, I'm doing something wrong.”—JS “After that first week (without my VA) I literally wanted to gouge my eyes out.”—RM “When it's literally done, it's different than knowing it's going to get done.”—JS “I'd like to not do it (the outsourced task), but I love the feeling that it's done and I don't have to worry anymore.”—RM “It would be silly to do your own books or legal…things that are just not core to your business.”—JS “I want to outsource the things that bring me comfort or bring me to a different level.”—RM “I can't stress enough how important it is to have the steps of any of your processes written down.”—JS “Having that checklist means not having to dedicate a space of your brain to anything routine.”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Setting Your Own Agenda | 20 Sep 2021 | 00:43:14 | |
The questions to ask yourself if you want to start or stop providing a particular service to a particular client. Breaking up with your client: when to do it, how to do it and what to watch out for. Why you always want to build a time constraint when transitioning clients—and how to think about the transition process. When retainer scope creep is your fault—think guilt around doing less for a bigger retainer—and what to do about it. Why the consultant’s job is to hold the vision for the project (and who is always THE client). Quotables “Here's the thing, it's your business. If you want to stop doing tactical work, you do more strategic work.”—JS “Breakups don't have to be ugly, but the other thing is that sometimes what we think might lead to a breakup doesn't at all.”—RM “Once you start doing that (extra pair of hands work), then it's a slippery slope. All of a sudden it's like the architect is cleaning the bathrooms.”—JS “The client asks because they don't think about our business model. They assume if they ask us for something that doesn't make sense, we'll say no .”—RM “The perfect time to say no…is the first time, like when the first ask happens or when you first think you're going to do it of your own volition. The second best time to do it is right now.”—JS “It's really important to be clear about your timeline so that your clients understand that there's a limited timeframe and if they don't move, they're not going to get support.”—RM “But if you have one foot out the door, it totally changes the framing (of your message). And then they're like, wait, maybe there's something we can work out.”—JS “Holding the vision for the project, that's our job. And if I want to get dramatic, I would say it's a sacred obligation.”—RM
LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Clearing The Decks (To Build Something New) | 22 Jan 2024 | 00:46:19 | |
Why you want to move those “bees in your head” to a Projects List where they don’t interfere with your focus right now. The importance of testing your concept (with yourself) and perhaps others before investing significant build time. Ways to organize the design flow of a time-bound challenge—and why cohorts can be so magical. Using technology short-cuts (like Zapier and ConvertKit)—and the value of testing your automations before you go live. Why documenting the process as you go is an easy move that pays off big if you decide to launch the program again. LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Are You Feeling Lucky? | 13 Sep 2021 | 00:41:08 | |
How to move beyond magical thinking and get very specific about your dream clients and buyers. Why crystal clear positioning makes everything—including attracting your ideal clients—flow more easily. Improving your odds of successful matchmaking—allowing influential others to hook you up with “your people”. The relationship between taking calculated risks and achieving oversized outcomes (think drumming with the Foo Fighters). Matching your dream up to your business and revenue model—and why that’s so critical. Quotables “If you could just wave a magic wand and be working with your top 20 dream clients, what names would be on that list?”—JS “In most situations, success is hard work plus opportunity or as someone famously said, ‘The harder I work, the luckier I get.’”—RM “You can increase your luck surface area, meaning you can do things, you can do the work, put in the effort to make it much more likely that you're going to attract the right kind of opportunities.”—JS “We want to be a thoughtful matchmaker—it’s what we hope to receive from the people matchmaking us.”—RM “Books will have this tendency to give you a defacto positioning.”—JS “When we first start businesses, we're not always that clear about where we’re going—it’s like binoculars that you keep focusing.”—RM “There's this outbound thing where you can take control of fate and say, okay, that's my dream. Tesla marketing. That's all I care about. And you put all of your resources into that for a period of time.”—JS “We want to see you succeed when you are the underdog…I want to see you strap on the cape and fly off into the air.”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Making Your Email Newsletters Relatable with John Dick | 06 Sep 2021 | 00:45:56 | |
How the newsletter started and why it was a well-kept secret for years. Tying the newsletter to the core business without making it salesy or deadly dull—and positioning it differently than anyone else in the space. How he sets the flow of the newsletter—and his fear that eventually he’ll run out of stories (sound familiar?). His #1 rule before releasing any “What We’re Seeing” emails. Why typical business assumptions about corporate titans are wrong—and how to engage them. Quotables “I wanted it to be the kind of thing they would want to read while drinking their coffee in the morning or laying next to their spouse in bed, on their phone. That's the vibe I was going for.”—JD “I was quite apprehensive initially about even doing something weekly. Cause I was like I once you're on the ride, it’s hard to get off.”—JD “It's gotten harder because I've used up most of my good stories by now, like funny stories I have from my dad or my college or whatever and like all my best material, I worry sometimes that I've used it up.”—JD “An insight is significantly more valuable the more relatable you can make it.”—JD “When you can make the insight…it doesn't just allow us to connect with that person as a reader, but it allows them to actually use that insight to drive a decision that they have to make.”—JD “I do think there are the people who read that and they see I'm not exactly sure what this company does, but I want to do business with people like this.”—JD “My Saturday email gets to be a little bit of a sacred place where that (sales) stuff doesn't happen.”—JD “I can tell you without ever naming any names, the most senior people and powerful people on that list are the ones who are most likely to answer those frivolous poll questions at the end of the newsletter.”—JD Links LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Zero To One | 30 Aug 2021 | 00:43:02 | |
What it takes to put your first product out for the world to see (even if you’re not painting zombies on skateboards). The fears you may experience the first time you go public and how to push through them. Why publishing your price(s) attracts the right buyers and repels the bad-fits. Worried about leaving money on the table by quoting a flat price? How to think about that whole transaction differently. Why your prices for products and productized services are all experimental and deserve to change regularly. Quotables “I was aware of a sales guy who would routinely send out proposals with an extra zero. And if the client gasps, he's ‘oh, it's a typo. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. It's $60,000, not $600,000.’”—JS “The buyer's time is valuable too. Who's going to want to sit through three conversations with three unknowns to figure out what they're going to do?”—RM “Just put a price on your website and you'll automatically attract the right kind of people for you. It would save everyone time. You wouldn't have to negotiate.”—JS “That first time that you actually put a price on your website…all sorts of things come up in your head, including imposter syndrome.”—RM “There's this fear of leaving money on the table, but guess what? If somebody jumps at it, then you just raise the price for the next person.”—JS “If you don't ever try raising your prices, you won't know the upper limits of what you can charge.”—RM “That indifference to whether or not the client buys—generally that comes from being in demand.”—JS “There's just something about putting a price on your website—you’re making a statement, oh, this is not a cheap WordPress guy I can hire for a thousand dollars…That’s level setting.”—RM Links Carl Richards on Ditching Hourly LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Monetizing Your Positioning | 23 Aug 2021 | 00:54:41 | |
How most freelancers and independent consultants monetize their expertise in their first year or two—and the signs when your revenue model might need an overhaul. The link between your positioning and monetizing your business—and why you want to be open to new ways of packaging your expertise. A “typical” consulting/speaking/book revenue model and how it can become a trap (and some ideas to avoid it altogether or get out while you can). What to do when your revenue model isn’t working. Quotables “It's very common for people to just go out on their own and do their job, but for clients instead of a boss, and the obvious business model is to just rent your hands out by the hour. And that's fine. That'll get you going.”—JS “And then at some point (after you’ve positioned yourself) you come smack dab up to your business and revenue model and you say, oh, these don't fit anymore.”—RM “The competition is increasing and you start to realize that you need to, you might not call it positioning, but you start to realize that you need to appear different in a meaningful way.”—JS “The real money is coming from the other two revenue streams (consulting and speaking), so he is on what I would call a gilded hamster wheel.”—RM “The typical business model for a consultant is write books, speak at conferences and make your money on consulting…He couldn't sell that business—he is the business.”—JS “This idea that you're stuck with this business and revenue model that you created for something you no longer do is insanity.”—RM “I love posting prices on your website because it puts you into a slot in the prospect's mind. So when new clients come along, they already have the expectation, at least in a ballpark way, of what it would mean to work together.”—JS “Of course, there are things you're going to do for free. But when you're working in your genius zone, delivering to your ideal audience, most of those should be paid.”—RM LINKS LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Patterns Of Authority | 16 Aug 2021 | 00:58:10 | |
You’re spending considerable time thinking, writing, speaking, publishing and socializing your point of view. You discover the forms of publishing that fit with your talents and audience and produce regularly, no matter what. You’re building a niche that not only allows you to charge more for your specialty, but gives you the ideal audience to continually feed your curiosity and work from your genius zone. You’re positioning your business and expertise in white space—a target market that you don’t share with anyone else. You’re building a business model with seductive levels of flexibility: what and how you charge; how much and how often you work; and a suite of leveraged services and products that optimize how you spend your time. Quotables “If you are renting your hands out by the hour to do tasks for your clients, it can be difficult to carve out time (to build authority). That feels un-billable, it feels like you're losing money.”—JS “Authorities have a point of view: what is your belief system about how your expertise impacts your world?”—RM “Freelancers are basically selling their hands where authorities are selling their brains. It's all about the intellectual property."—JS “Obviously you can make a lot of money specializing, but in addition to that, you really can go where your curiosity takes you.”—RM “Since I've got a daily deadline to publish something…for a bunch of people who are waiting for it, my brain will gravitate to what I should consider for that vs. thinking about say what should I wear tomorrow.”—JS “If you're looking for ways to prime the (authority building) pump…read!”—RM “Writing is like the sort of cohesive, coherent long form. It’s the crucible almost that you go through to bake your idea into something.”—JS “A lot of us need to socialize things with other people to really get at all the things in the dusty corners of our brains.”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Do You Need An Exit Plan? | 09 Aug 2021 | 00:55:18 | |
Situations where designing an actual exit plan makes sense and how to think about it. The mindset required to move from trading time for money to creating assets with value independent of your presence. Client exit strategies and why they worked for their situations. Creating a business where the value isn’t 100% tied to your name—and when/how to start the shift. LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| The Post-COVID Reckoning | 02 Aug 2021 | 00:55:58 | |
Channeling that sense of dissatisfaction to make big, small and/or pivotal change in your business. Deciding which aspects of your work/life are ready for change and how to keep moving forward. Dealing with status and identity challenges as you evaluate what next steps will work best for you. Leaning into small changes that can have an outsized impact on your happiness. How to let those clients and employees you’re leaving behind go with integrity. Quotables “I like to think optimistically that the whole thing was a wake-up call for people—who are now feeling the malaise as a desire to have more of a purpose or impact.”—JS “Our elbows are rubbing up against the sides of our cage. And people are saying, what else is there? What can be next?”—RM “Everything's in motion. So any rut that you're stuck in, you're going to have a lot of helpful momentum to pop you out of it.”—JS “Don't worry about the process. Worry about where it is you want to go to get really excited about your work again.”—RM “If you could wave a magic wand and put whatever you wanted in your calendar, what would be in your calendar?”—JS “Change begets change. We do one small thing and then it energizes us, it gives us confidence to make another change.”—RM “Look at your product and service mix and ask: am I getting bored with these? Am I getting better at these? Are they aligned with my mission?”—JS “We like the changes that we initiate far more than those that somebody else puts on us.”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Avoiding An Expiration Date | 26 Jul 2021 | 00:46:26 | |
Evergreen expertise and content vs. those with an expiration date. How to distinguish yourself with evergreen content—and why your voice and point of view are clear difference makers. Avoiding the purist view that we absolutely have to invent something that's never been thought of before—and what to do instead. Side-stepping the eventual conversion of your hot market knowledge into a commodity—or worse (our sympathy to Flash developers). The magic of moving up to a higher level topic that is relevant to your current audience—and how to do it. Quotables “Maybe you localize a topic about marketing or sales into the technology landscape that didn't exist five years ago. If you’re careful about how you straddle that divide, you could still create very evergreen, but up to date content that stands the test of time.”—JS “It's really easy to say let's go do evergreen content, but to distinguish yourself, you've got to really slice and dice it in such a way that you've got something new to say, or it’s new to a different audience.”—RM “I've probably read 200 books on sales and marketing. It's stuff that software developers would rather eat glass than read. So if I can bring that to them in a funny way, or a way that resonates with them, or using language that doesn't repel them, then that's super valuable.”—JS “We can't come from this purist view that we absolutely have to get something that's never been thought of before.”—RM “Some of these more evergreen topics are going to be like fundamental truths of human nature, human behavior.”—JS “It's a lot easier to get attention when you've got the newest sexiest whistle—everybody wants to go hear it.”—RM “When you’re being cutting edge, you're co-opting the hype that some product or technology has built up and you're just strapped to that horse.—JS “When your consulting is based on a new technology, over time more people are going to know what you know, so the price of your expertise goes down and eventually becomes commoditized.”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Addicted To Being Busy | 19 Jul 2021 | 00:47:05 | |
Tackling the mindset that says you must be constantly busy or you’re not worthy of success. Busyness as a form of procrastination—and what to do instead. Why defining a clear goal and strategy (with pre-planned tactics) can help you side step unfocused busyness. The joys of creating leverage—and what to do with the time you’ve freed up. How intentional, goal-based action will naturally identify the most high impact moves to grow your business. Quotables “When you actually get productive instead of just busy, you're producing better output with less input.”—JS “There is busyness that is not productive in some way or creative, but that is really designed to take up space—it keeps you from facing decisions you need to make.”—RM “Strategy is what helps you understand the difference between an opportunity and a distraction.”—JS “Not checking or responding to email constantly really changed my life.”—RM “How do you get productive instead of busy?”—JS “Putting some limits on what you do in a day helps to improve productivity and outcomes.”—RM “If you find that you can't eliminate the busyness, you have to ask yourself: what's going on here? Am I hooked on it? Is it some kind of worldview? Is it my identity? Do I believe deep down that if I'm not toiling all at all times, then I'm a bad person?” —JS “If you recognize that maybe there's a little addiction going on with your busyness, before you start to shift gears, just stop and breathe for a moment and just ask: is this the best thing for me to be doing next?”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Engineering Confidence | 12 Jul 2021 | 00:57:41 | |
How confidence plays out in growing your business—and the role of daring and initiative in your success. Why you need a handful of marketing processes built around your expertise and your market position—and a few examples of those that work. How to think about and design your selling systems with both fixed and fluid components. Ensuring your delivery processes support your selling and marketing and deliver your promised outcomes. Why your behind-the-scenes operations need processes too—including project management, invoicing and client/team communications. Quotables “It's not confidence that allows me to launch (something new). It's that if it doesn't work, I'll try something else.”—JS “Well-placed confidence says, listen, I've been through this before. I don't know if it's going to be successful, but I'm confident that I'm going to do my best to make this work.”—RM “What is the market telling me…is this thing I created not selling at this price? What am I learning from that? And how do you build a system around it?”—JS “It's hysterical how those checklists save us time, but they engineer confidence. Because you can focus on what's important vs. the miscellaneous stuff that has to get done.”—RM “If you have to learn the lesson every time…you're not engineering any confidence in your process.”—JS “When it comes to selling, you want to absolutely systematize every possible thing.”—RM “You’ve already burned the creative energy to come up with a really good way to say this—why reinvent the wheel?”—JS “Process is absolutely a critical part of being a believable, repeatable, successful consultant.”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| How To Launch Something Different | 15 Jan 2024 | 00:43:58 | |
How to identify your target market and create just enough of a description of the new offering to test it with them. Different ways to construct a “listening tour” for feedback and constructive criticism depending on your idea and your goal. Why you want to prepare a throughline—the compelling story that connects what you’ve been doing to your new thing. The value in embracing imperfection and adopting an experimental mindset. LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Battling Invisible Risk | 05 Jul 2021 | 00:40:21 | |
Understanding how bad things could go—what’s the worst that could happen and how are you protected? Pricing your work based on the amount of risk you decide to shoulder. Saying no to high risk, low return client requests. The role and value of defining work processes to manage your risk exposure. Using peers and sounding boards when you’re doing strategic, high-impact consulting. Quotables “What's the right thing to do when you're engaged in client projects, where there are risks and project failure can cost lots of money?”—JS “How bad can things go and what's your role in that? That's a strategic business operational question that we all have to ask ourselves.”—RM “If you…take these hidden risks and make them visible, you can price based on that.”—JS “Most of us who go into our own businesses, we don't like the word discipline…but there's a certain amount of discipline in running a business.”—RM “E+O insurance, that was my net. Like I could walk the high wire with confidence, knowing that if things went as bad as possible, I wouldn't be in the street. My family wouldn't be in this.”—JS “If what you're doing is more of a strategic thing, you really want to have a sounding board or two that you can use when you uncover an unusual client situation.”—RM “Knowing that a second pair of eyes will be reviewing your work is a very interesting little kind of safety valve.”—JS “We had peers excited about the work that we were doing, trying to figure out how to make it great for the client.”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Everything You Want To Know About Retainers | 28 Jun 2021 | 00:52:13 | |
How to structure—and think about—advisory retainers, including the role/importance of a guarantee. Operating as a fractional CXO without committing to hours. Designing extra pair of hands retainers that focus on outcomes—including productized services sold monthly. The landmines to avoid when structuring your retainers. The mindset shifts you’ll need to make as you move along the retainer continuum Quotables “In this context you're selling insurance…that's what an advisory retainer is. It's not about showing up and coding.”—JS “When you're used to being paid for using your hands, being paid to sit on them instead feels really weird.”—RM “The people who designed my Subaru Outback are different from the people who built my Subaru Outback and are different from the people who change the oil.”—JS “You're not going to be able to deliver a home run to somebody who can't figure out what that looks like.”—RM “If you're earlier in your career…and you do want some kind of stability or predictability in your income you could sell productized services on an ongoing monthly basis.”—JS “There's no shame in doing the work and creating some kind of a retainer where you can get stability, you can get some continuity and you can build your credentials in the course of working for those organizations.”—RM “What are you guaranteeing with an advisory retainer? The thing that I would guarantee is the response time. What they're buying is good answers fast.”—JS “The whole idea behind advisory retainers is they're buying access—to your brain and to good answers fast.”—RM LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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| Ask Us Anything 4 | 21 Jun 2021 | 00:27:27 | |
The role of trust—in you, in the process and their ability to carry out your recommendations—in choosing their course of action. How differing perceptions of risk and the fear of change can drive organizational decisions. Getting behind surface reactions and digging more deeply into the “why” behind client decisions. The relationship between time, value and urgency as the client perceives them. How the perhaps invisible—but still deeply entrenched—internal politics of your client’s situation may play out. Quotables “Straight up fear of change—where there's a perceived risk—it feels scary. Or distasteful. People just don't like change.”—JS “Forget what you think is the right decision—just try to get to the bottom of what the client’s fear is about. By asking them some of those deeper questions, you may be able to uncover something that isn't on the surface.”—RM “Sometimes it’s that they do trust you and they're not afraid of change, but they recognize that it (your recommendation) could fail.”—JS “If the person who's making the decision doesn't reap any of the benefits, they're just not interested in putting their head on the chopping block.”—RM “Maybe the person who's making the decision is new and hasn't got the political capital to do it.”—JS “The whole theme of this is don't rely on your logic. Because your logic doesn't matter. It's how the client looks at it—it’s their perception of the situation that is going to drive the decision.”—RM “Money is only part of the investment. There's also a time investment for any project.”—JS “This is not about being manipulative. It's just really digging in to their situation and trying to understand what their life is like inside this organization.”—RM Got a question for us? Do you have a question that you'd like us to answer on the show? We'd love to hear from you! Email a voice recording to Jonathan at asktboa@jonathanstark.com and we'll add it to the queue. LINKS Rochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
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