The Soloist Life

When you’re in the midst of an overwhelming business challenge—your revenue plummets, your audience dries up, you can’t seem to make a sale—what do you do? Award-winning author and podcaster Jenny Blake takes us through the messy middle, sharing her story of challenge, resilience and percolating without yet knowing the answer:Why her first reaction to a pandemic-induced 80% revenue drop was “I wrote a book called Pivot—I’ve got this.”How that reaction turned to “I couldn’t fake it anymore—I couldn’t pretend anymore. I didn’t have any hope left…” when she lost a six-figure client.Channeling her angst and uncertainty into a popular (paid) substack as she semi-publicly worked through what to do next.The health scare that made her dramatically change how she was working.The glimmers of her next chapter—how they appeared and how she thoughtfully nurtures them.LINKSJenny Blake Substack | Free Time | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram  Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramBIOJenny is an author and podcaster who runs a Delightfully Tiny media company. She is the author of three award-winning books, including Free Time (Ideapress, 2022) and Pivot (Penguin/Random House, 2016). She hosts two podcasts with over two million downloads combined: the Webby-nominated Free Time for Heart-Based Business owners, and Pivot with Jenny Blake for navigating change.On her Substack Rolling in Doh, she shares personal essays about the messier parts of running a small business.She lives in New York City with her husband and her angel-in-fur-coat German shepherd Ryder.BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLE RESOURCES FOR SOLOISTSJoin the Soloist email list: helping thousands of Soloist Consultants smash through their revenue plateau.Soloist Events: in-person events for Soloists to gather, connect and learn.The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.TRANSCRIPT00:00 - 00:30Jenny Blake: I have no judgment about anybody working at a job, but I get sick with that kind of work schedule or the meetings and calls. It drains me of all life, all the creative juice I have. It's just not the format. I've known that about myself. These are kind of the known variables. And yet, as you said, it's just so precarious. It's so touch and go. Even now, we're recording at the start of a month and I don't have the mortgage in the bank for 28 days from now. So where's that going to come from? I have00:30 - 00:30Jenny Blake: no clue.00:36 - 01:16Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast, where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton, and today I'm thrilled to welcome back Jenny Blake to talk about what's been happening since we last spoke and spoiler alert, business has been challenging. Jenny is an author and podcaster who runs a delightfully tiny media company. She is the author of 3 award-winning books, including Free Time and Pivot. She hosts 2 podcasts with over 2 million downloads combined. The Webby nominated Free Time for heart-based business owners and Pivot with Jenny Blake for navigating change.01:16 - 01:33Rochelle Moulton: On her sub stack, Rolling in Dough, she shares personal essays about the messier parts of running a small business. She lives in New York City with her husband and her adorable angel in fur coat, German Shepherd rider. Jenny, welcome back. Yay, thank you, Russel. I'm thrilled to01:33 - 01:34Jenny Blake: be here.01:34 - 02:08Rochelle Moulton: I'm just so excited about this, as you know, from our pre-chat. So 1 of the reasons I wanted to have you back on the show is that last time we talked, you mentioned a big event. Well, 2 events, really. 2 big events that wiped $150, 000 of ongoing revenue off the table in a week. And that was the impetus for starting your Substack Rolling in Dough, where you've been documenting the not so lovely underbelly of owning a solo business when things go sideways. And I've been reading it since we talked almost a year ago. And now02:08 - 02:13Rochelle Moulton: today, I'd love for you to lift the veil a bit for our audience. So are you ready?02:13 - 02:15Jenny Blake: Sure. Yes.02:15 - 02:15Rochelle Moulton: And02:15 - 02:22Jenny Blake: We should say it's rolling in dough, D-O-H with a face palm for the O. I'm trying to tell my subconscious.02:23 - 02:24Rochelle Moulton: I always want to call it duh.02:24 - 03:02Jenny Blake: Yeah, right, which could work too. I want my subconscious to think that we're rolling in dough, And then the funny part is celebrating the dough, you know, the Homer Simpson of it all. And my husband made fun of me that I'm becoming a scholar in flop eras. And I'm like so interested in this topic of failure or when things go wrong or they're embarrassing or just the dough of it all. So it's actually become quite a fruitful area to dig into once I get over, you know, whatever embarrassment or fear that I'm self-sabotaging by sharing what03:02 - 03:03Jenny Blake: I do out loud.03:04 - 03:15Rochelle Moulton: Well, the other thing I should mention is 1 of the visuals for this is a beautiful donut with pink frosting and sprinkles. So I really, I love that juxtaposition of the duh with,03:15 - 03:45Jenny Blake: yeah, he's the little mascot. He has 2 eyes looking on a shifty. I have a lot of fun in Canva figuring out where to put him like on the beach or yeah, just different scenes. So thank you. Thank you for reading. And it's really a joy to be doing this project. I didn't even know that it would be lasting over a year, but also to get to talk about some of this out loud because part of the reason I started Rolling in Dough is I couldn't stand it anymore. I felt like every business book I read,03:45 - 04:15Jenny Blake: every business podcast I was listening to was all about the shiny and the successful and how to be more successful and how to earn 7 figures and now 8 figures and now you're a billion dollar creator. And yet behind the scenes, every phone call that I was having one-on-one with small business owners like myself, people were struggling. They were feeling like something's wrong with them. They were feeling like after 10, 15, 40 years that it was their worst year in business and that it was all about to collapse at any moment. For me, part of the04:15 - 04:20Jenny Blake: motivation here is, somebody's got to say this out loud. It might as well be me.04:20 - 04:40Rochelle Moulton: Yes. Part of me wants to say welcome to being a soloist. It's the ups and downs. Everybody has them, but very few people really talk about it until after they're through on the other side and then we can look back and we can pat ourselves on the back for how brilliant we are now, but we forget about how badly it sucked then.04:40 - 05:13Jenny Blake: Right. There are very real concerns. You wouldn't want to be a Debbie Downer or drive all your clients away by complaining, or seem ungrateful, or just seem like you don't have your stuff together. You know, like there are risks and the writing adage right from the scar, not the wound, why say dough is the wound? And I'm not saying that I advise everybody to do that. And I do lean more now toward the creative part of my identity than even the business owner part of my identity. So it's okay in a sense that I'm playing with05:13 - 05:43Jenny Blake: my play dough of my sub stack. So it's not that I would recommend everybody write from the wound, but I also feel like sometimes when you write from the scar, you forget the details. You forget what it's really like. It is a little shiny. We all know a scar. It's kind of like, Oh, isn't that beautiful? It just reminds me about the time I fell face first in the grass. OK, but in the moment, how did it feel? And I think it's easy to forget. So this is me also putting myself on a limb to say,05:43 - 05:52Jenny Blake: I haven't solved this yet. Even I get self-conscious coming to this conversation thinking, gosh, do I have anything new to share? I haven't figured anything out really.05:52 - 06:22Rochelle Moulton: And that's what to me was so interesting because you're in the messy middle and I love the messy middle. Now, having said that, And I'm sure we'll get there as we talk about this as an observer just reading what you've written I feel the change I can feel the next direction Especially with the 1 that you just sent this morning. Thank you. We should start with a little background Right. So talk us through where you were with your business when you got whacked with that $150, 000 loss.06:23 - 06:54Jenny Blake: Yeah. Well, the first whack was with everyone else March 2020 that's when 80% of my income was wiped out at once because I do a lot of speaking and events and corporate licensing from the pivot IP part of my business. And I was at that point, a decade into solopreneurship, I had a lot of fear. I used to work at Google, I had so much fear leaving that I wasn't cut out for entrepreneurship. I was just, I was a good employee. I was a good girl, a straight A student, but I didn't know how to make06:54 - 07:23Jenny Blake: it on my own. But I didn't dream to have the fears that all my income would get wiped out at the same time, all clients at once, and 2 years into the future. That I never saw coming. That was a worst case scenario I couldn't even imagine. I thought about recession, and I actually wrote my second book, Pivot, to be countercyclical in the sense that, OK, if there's a recession, pivot is still relevant. More people will be pivoting and getting pivoted than ever, which of course was also true in 2020. And I felt in that moment07:23 - 07:50Jenny Blake: when the pandemic hit, okay, I wrote a book called Pivot, I've got this. Now's the time, I doubled down on my podcast, I did a daily show for 3 months, I was like, really leaned on my reserves to be resilient and positive and optimistic and hopeful and grateful and all the things, even though it was such a tough time. And I'm the breadwinner for our household. So for me, my husband and our dog living in New York City with a mortgage that I had just bought this apartment a year prior. So my business had been at07:50 - 08:20Jenny Blake: a peak in 2019, the highest revenue I had ever had. I had just gotten married. We just brought home a puppy and I had just bought a house. Now maybe to my future self, I would say, can you please not do all those things at the same time ever again? But that's what I was carrying by the time at the same time all my income got wiped out. And I'm not trying to be a victim about it. It's just like this was the facts. Like the complexity of my life ramped all the way up, the pressure,08:20 - 08:54Jenny Blake: the stress, as the financial floor fell out. And for a few years, I was able to feel resilient and I even doubled down on my love for small business by leading into free time, launching a podcast, hybrid publishing the book, Free Time, that came out in March of 2022. But then things just didn't get better. I felt like the economy still was just inching along and there was this saying in real estate, survive till 25. And I kept thinking each next year things would turn around again and we'd go back to normal somehow but every year08:54 - 09:28Jenny Blake: got worse there were all these tech layoffs I work with a lot of tech companies it was the year of austerity the year of efficiency the year of cuts and layoffs and sure enough by last summer June 2023 1 of my biggest most favorite long time licensing clients ended our contract. And at that point, I felt it was the straw that broke the camel's back of my psyche. I couldn't fake it anymore. I couldn't pretend anymore. I didn't have any more hope left. And it's not that I'm trying to put all my identity into this 109:28 - 09:57Jenny Blake: client, but hinted at it rhymes with Google and I used to work there. And I just thought, who even am I as a business owner without this client anymore? This was the thing that would impress my peers when I told them who my clients were. And I still have 1 licensing client who's been with me 8 years, but at that point I didn't know what else to do. And when I got that call and I processed the only way I could see to deal with yet another loss, yet another sort of devastating financial blow was to09:57 - 09:59Jenny Blake: start writing. And I haven't stopped since.10:00 - 10:33Rochelle Moulton: I mean, I so feel that, what that's like. You have this event that no 1 could have predicted, right? I could feel your optimism. I can do this. I'm going to do this. And then at some point, you know, there is a straw. But I guess what I'd like to talk a little bit about what I guess we could call personal narrative writing, which is, you know, what I think of as the substack. And so you dived into this new to you form of writing on substack. You're a great writer. I mean, I loved your book.10:33 - 10:51Rochelle Moulton: So that's why I was so intrigued by the substacks. And then eventually you also paused both podcasts, which, you know, by the way, sounded like a hellish production schedule to begin with. So it's been what, a year plus of regular substack pieces and 6 months roughly off of your podcast. Like, what's10:51 - 11:24Jenny Blake: that been like for you? Yeah, the pausing the podcast was a tough decision because I had had a show for almost 9 years. Pivot podcast was around for the longest since 2015, and then Free Time had been going for 3 years. And yes, the production schedule was intense. I published 14 episodes a month. However, it was the thing I loved. And if you've read Doe or Shall You Know, the post, do what you love and the money will follow if you meet these 20 criteria. I think 1 of my sort of veil lifted on the myths11:24 - 11:55Jenny Blake: and promises of entrepreneurship was if I just find the thing I love, I can make a job for myself even within my business. And that's what I tried to do with podcasting the last few years. And it was costing much more than I was making. So I was spending about 3, 000 a month on production and certainly wasn't earning that back because the shows didn't get big enough to have ad revenue that would have even broken even. And without regular speaking gigs, because in-person events, I mean, for me personally, still haven't fully come back the way11:55 - 12:34Jenny Blake: they were. I just couldn't float. It was almost like my corporate work was providing the funding for my passion projects, even within my own business. So I couldn't justify the cost anymore. I also felt I couldn't justify the time and energy. It wasn't just the cost, It was that here I am giving everything I have to this thing that I do love and I was really loving making the relationships and meeting people like you, but it wasn't sustaining me. It wasn't giving back to me. I mean, I love the love notes from listeners, so honored the12:34 - 13:03Jenny Blake: people for whom it was their number 1 show and Spotify wrapped. But I also had to look in the mirror and say this thing didn't work. It didn't take off. It's not sustaining me. It's actually putting my finances more at risk. So I need to take a break because it's trying to tell me through my bank account, something's not working. At least that's what my broader business is trying to say. Whatever you're doing with your time, it's not working because the bank account is in serious trouble. And pausing them in February, as you read in Dover13:03 - 13:31Jenny Blake: Shell, I ended up getting a surge of work in the spring. And I was able to run around doing a few speaking gigs. I was doing a lot. But I ended up in the ER. And then I spent the summer going to the gym every day. I joke that I joined Equinox and I call it my spa office, because I go and I do some work, some writing, some working out, some sauna and steam room. And I realized in hindsight now, looking back, I wouldn't have been able to focus on my health like that and my13:31 - 13:50Jenny Blake: recovery if I was still doing the podcasts because they were all consuming. It was filling my time every day. And now I'm really unhooked from the computer and the calendar and much happier, even though again, I haven't really solved anything yet. But I know what I need to kind of leave on pause for the moment.13:50 - 14:02Rochelle Moulton: Well, it's interesting when you mentioned the bank account, I know you were talking about money, but it also struck me that you have an emotional bank account and that was getting empty too, in part from the podcast.14:02 - 14:34Jenny Blake: Yeah, or I was just dedicating so much time and energy. The weird thing about it is that it never drained me. That's what was so confusing is that every day I really enjoyed interviewing my guests and being interviewed as other people's guests. That never really wavered. So that's what I found confusing in the decision to pause them was that I thought if you find that thing that gives you energy and lights you up and that you love and that People seem to think you're good at like that's it and then it takes off and it works14:36 - 14:37Rochelle Moulton:...

Being a podcast guest pays some excellent dividends: introducing you to new audiences, practice delivering your point of view and honing your message for starters. But how do you get yourself booked?The qualities that will make you a solid, bookable podcast guest.The 5-step system to get consistent results to your podcast guesting requests.The one thing you must have before pitching yourself to a single podcast.Why smaller, niche podcasts may be ideal, especially when first starting to guest.How to craft your pitch—and the 3 paragraph format to improve your chances of a YES.LINKSRochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramBOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLE RESOURCES FOR SOLOISTSJoin the Soloist email list: helping thousands of Soloist Consultants smash through their revenue plateau.Soloist Events: in-person events for Soloists to gather, connect and learn.The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.TRANSCRIPT00:00 - 00:42Rochelle Moulton: The best pitches are short, impactful, and do not make the host do any work to say yes, because the second you require them to do work, your chances of a yes drop dramatically. Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Molten and today I want to talk about getting yourself booked on podcasts. Now, maybe it's because I've seen some of the most god-awful pitches in the 7 plus years I've been hosting podcasts. I so don't want you to write pitches like those. But it's00:42 - 01:23Rochelle Moulton: really because I believe in the merits of guesting on podcasts, even when, maybe especially when, you're not hosting a show of your own. Being a solid podcast guest pays all sorts of dividends in terms of introducing you to new audiences, filled with potential clients and buyers. You also get to practice delivering your point of view and honing your message, becoming a better communicator of your message in the process. Now, what do I mean by being a solid podcast guest? Well, you like to be interviewed and have a conversation. You have some compelling stories to share and01:23 - 02:04Rochelle Moulton: you have something valuable to teach. If all you're trying to do is sell your services or products and you genuinely don't like to be interviewed or share stories or teach something valuable, podcast guesting is not a good strategy for you. But if you wanna do more guesting, it helps to create a very simple system, 1 that you can partially outsource if you like to get consistent results. And think of it as 5 steps. So number 1, decide why you want to be on podcasts. Number 2, Research and plan for your guesting. Number 3, I'm sure it's02:04 - 02:45Rochelle Moulton: your favorite, pitch yourself. And number 4, prepare for the actual interview. And last but not least, number 5, leverage the asset you've created. So let's talk about each of those. First is your why, your purpose in guesting. And hey, there's nothing wrong with your purpose being very self-serving. You're spending significant time with this, so you'll want to pick a highly valuable outcome to make it worth your while. And for example, do you want to entice people to your own show, grow your network, sell high ticket consulting or coaching, sell books? You want to get exquisitely clear02:45 - 03:21Rochelle Moulton: on your why so that you can be highly focused in your pitches, your message, and how your performance as a guest boomerangs back to help you grow your business. And once you figured out your why, researching and prioritizing potential podcasts gets vastly simpler. Now, pitching is a bit of an art form, but when you know why you want to guest on their show and have done your homework, your custom pitch can cut through to increase your chances of getting a yes. Once you get that yes, it's all about preparing for the interview. What will you talk03:21 - 04:01Rochelle Moulton: about? What stories are most relevant to their topic and their audience? What's your call to action for the interview? And yes, you want to have a call to action because it will allow you to build toward 1 central theme and keep you and the listener on track. Plus, you can point them to something as a bonus afterwards, say a checklist or an assessment or an article. It keeps you on track. And after your episode goes live, you still have work to do. Now you wanna leverage this asset you've created together. And remember podcast episodes live forever.04:03 - 04:38Rochelle Moulton: If yours is evergreen, you can keep leveraging it for as long as it works for you. All righty, let's dig into this some more. So let's say you've decided you want a guest on podcast to find more high ticket clients. And let's also say that you work on PR for B2B SaaS founders, and you've got some really compelling stories. Now, sidebar, this process is so much easier when you have a clear cut ideal client or buyer. If you're not there yet, spend the time to get your audience and messaging down before you start researching potential shows.04:39 - 05:11Rochelle Moulton: Okay. So you're a PR expert with a specific point of view and you do some research on SaaS podcasts. Now start with those you already listened to because you know how the show works and you can a lot of times you can reverse engineer how they choose their guests. Make a list, a spreadsheet works great for this. I do love a good spreadsheet with the show, the host, their audience, what you think you'd want to talk about, how many reviews they have in Spotify or Apple, and any notes you want to capture from your research. Just05:11 - 05:41Rochelle Moulton: leave room to add a priority ranking and an estimate of their reach later. Oh, and make sure that they have guests regularly. Not everyone does. So take a quick look at their episodes to make sure that they might be interested in interviewing you. Notice that it's not so easy to know if a podcast is right for you. If you've never heard of the host or listened to an episode. The antidote to that is giving a few episodes a listen. I mean, you can play it on 2 times speed once you get the hang of the host05:41 - 06:18Rochelle Moulton: style, but don't shortcut this step. And if you're outsourcing this to an agency, get some assurances that they have actually vetted the podcast they're pitching you for. Now get at least 5 or 6 on your list. Even 10 to 20 is fine, and not just those with huge audiences. If you're new to this, you'll have better luck with smaller niche podcasts, and the practice will be good for you. Once you've got a good assortment, it's time to prioritize. So our PR consultant to SaaS founders has a list of 20 SaaS podcasts. They're going to prioritize those06:18 - 06:57Rochelle Moulton: that are targeted to founders first. Then I'd suggest getting an idea of how large their audience is to help you prioritize. And you can do that by looking at how many reviews they have as a proxy for downloads and or you can use a site like listen notes.com that ranks podcasts with a listener score. Neither is perfect, but it will give you an order of magnitude that will help you decide which to pitch first. And this may feel counterintuitive, but you probably wanna start with a smaller audience podcasts first. Because they will 1, tend to be06:57 - 07:30Rochelle Moulton: excited about getting a well-crafted pitch from an ideal guest, and 2, be more receptive to a pitch from someone they don't know because filling guest slots is hard. Now the bigger shows can be pickier and if you haven't made a name for yourself yet or don't have an intriguing book to send them, it's harder to get a yes. Just start with the lowest hanging fruit so you can get in the game and start honing your skills. Now, let's assume you've picked a couple to pitch, okay? Now you wanna parse these out a bit because your pitches07:30 - 08:09Rochelle Moulton: will get better as you get some practice. And the pitch is everything, because it's typically your 1 chance to connect and intrigue. Right? The best pitches are short, impactful, and do not make the host do any work to say yes. Because the second you require them to do work, your chances of a yes drop dramatically. Now I get a surprising number of pitches, often from agencies, where they go on and on about the guest bio, but they never give even a hint the person has ever been on a podcast, which means if I'm going to consider08:09 - 08:43Rochelle Moulton: them, I have to track down their site and they rarely have a podcast. So I'm supposed to go looking for their interviews and then listen to some to see if they'll be a fit. Not gonna happen. Right. Or they use a can pitch for every podcast they pitch. I get about 1 a week from someone pitching a talk on leadership in corporate America. I couldn't care less about that topic. And just reading the title of this podcast, nevermind the 2 sentence description, should tell the most casual reader it's not a fit. So I don't even respond08:43 - 09:21Rochelle Moulton: to those. My point here is your pitch must be crafted for that specific host based on what's important to them. Just follow the with them rule, right? What's in it for me with your host in mind. So our PR pro might pitch a podcast with SaaS founders by teasing a story where a SaaS founder saved their bacon by getting out in front of a breaking story, you know, of course, with PR help, or suggesting an episode on the top 5 signs a SaaS needs to hire an outside communications expert, and you'll be telling stories to illustrate09:21 - 10:00Rochelle Moulton: that. Or how to avoid hiring the wrong PR advisor. Again, more stories. Now the actual pitch will vary based on the specific point of view of the PR consultant, how that fits or challenges the host's point of view, and the suspected audience for the show. And you can do devil's advocate style pitches too. It's got a lot of options. Whatever you decide, keep the pitch super simple and in your own voice. Now, most successful pitches are just 3 paragraphs. You've got an opening where you make a meaningful connection to the show's message, and that can include10:00 - 10:34Rochelle Moulton: a reference to an ongoing bit on the show or a specific guest or episode, but make it specific, not generic. And the second paragraph where you suggest the topic of your proposed episode, adding just enough color so the host can envision it. And you can add a link or 2, say, to the page on your site with your interviews or to a media page so that they can get you with a quick click. And the third paragraph is a great place to say something humble and connective. You might say, I've given a Spotify review of your10:34 - 11:08Rochelle Moulton: podcast because it provides so much value to the SaaS founders I serve. Or something like, totally understand if this isn't a fit right now, but I'd love to connect since we both serve a similar audience. And if you aren't already, connect with them on LinkedIn after sending your pitch, so they'll connect the pitch to your face. It helps make you more human. Oh, and pro tip, send your pitch in an email, not on say LinkedIn. It's too easy for those with lots of connections to lose your message on social. Keep it in their email inbox where11:08 - 11:42Rochelle Moulton: they can find it or delegate it. Okay, so you hear back and you book your first interview. Yay, right? But you're not done yet. You've got to prepare for the interview so your episode does exactly what you want it to do. Just go back to your why, your purpose, and remind yourself why you want to do this, and then dig in. Look again at your pitch and their response. This will tell you the angle you want to take here because only then can you lay out the 3 key pieces of your interview. What you'll be talking11:42 - 12:16Rochelle Moulton: about, which stories will be most compelling for that topic and their audience, and your call to action. So this might sound like a 15 minute note taking session and you're done, which if you've been doing this awhile and you have clear talking points, it is. But if this is relatively new territory for you, you'll want to dig in and really think about how to match up your point of view, your expertise and your stories with this particular podcast and host. And you might want to let the prep stretch over a few days so you have a12:16 - 12:50Rochelle Moulton: chance to mull over different stories and how to best present them. Some of the best interviews, the ones that feel fresh and engaging and natural, are the result of hours of preparation. Now the good news, if you keep good notes, you won't have to rethink every interview, but build on what you've already done, what you've already prepared. When my first book came out, I booked an interview with Chris Doe on the future, which felt like a really big get at the time. I had to get through an hour screening call with his managing director before even12:50 - 13:20Rochelle Moulton: being added to a possible guest list. So you can bet that when I got booked, I prepped like crazy for that. I spent the equivalent of almost 2 days just to make sure I nailed it. Because for me, it was a test of how my book could be received in the creative community. And I knew he was a good interviewer with plenty of influence, which meant I needed to be at the top of my game. It's 1 of the best interviews I've ever done, and I would do the same prep work all over again for the13:20 - 13:57Rochelle Moulton: next book. All this is a long-winded way of saying that preparation is important. Invest the amount of time it takes for you to feel prepped and confident on the podcasters platform, No more and no less. So let's assume you've done the interview and it was great. You're happy with the outcome. And if you're not for some reason, get a second opinion versus thinking it sucks because you're unhappy with the sound of your voice. Okay, now it's time to leverage this evergreen asset that you've created together. A lot depends on the agreement, if any, that you made13:57 - 14:32Rochelle Moulton: with the host. Sometimes you agree to drop it in your newsletter or specific social channels. Other times the host doesn't care so much because they've already got an engaged audience and they view you as a bonus. In either event, do a simple thing as soon as you've wrapped the episode, preferably right after you hang up. Go give their podcast a review in Spotify or Apple podcasts. It's thoughtful and quick and easy. And then put your marketing hat on. Your host will have a process around sharing assets from your episode. You have visuals, audio clips, marketing copy,14:32 - 15:03Rochelle Moulton: and they'll usually deliver it pretty close to when your episode will drop. Now, if you can't get an exact drop date, see if you can get a general timeframe so you can fit it into your email and social posting schedule. Think about how and where you wanna share this, And if you haven't already, make a home for your interviews on your website. Yeah, it looks kind of lame when you have just 1 interview, but use that as fuel to keep getting more. Or save them up in a document so when you're ready to add a media15:03 - 15:36Rochelle Moulton: page, you've got all the info and links at your fingertips. And those also make excellent links for pitching new podcasts so that they can see that you're not a first-timer. Then when your interview comes out, share the heck out of it. Maybe you include it in your emails to your list with some compelling copy about why it's a good listen when it first comes out. But maybe it's a terrific adjunct to something you write 3 months or 3 years later. I mean, you can link to the original podcast for people who want a deeper dive or15:36 - 16:11Rochelle Moulton: who may have missed it because they didn't know you then, or the topic just wasn't on their radar then. The reverse happens too, which is fabulous. New listeners to the original podcast dip into the back catalog of episodes. I've had clients come to me from something they listened to 5 years ago. It happens more often than you think. It's why podcasting is so powerful for people like us, experts who are selling their expertise. Very little of what we have to say will be dated or irrelevant quickly. We have a much longer shelf life than the latest16:11 - 16:48Rochelle Moulton: pop star or breaking news. Okay, I've covered a lot of ground here, So let me recap and try and tie this up with a bow. If you want to get yourself booked on podcasts, it's going to take some attention or some cash if you'd rather outsource this work. But the process is the same. Decide why you want to be on podcasts, research and plan for your guesting, pitch yourself, prepare for the actual interview and leverage the asset you've created so you can reap the benefit for years to come. Now I know you can do this. You16:48 - 17:07Rochelle Moulton: just have to start and stick with it. All right. Now as we wrap up this episode, if you haven't joined my email list yet, now is the time. Your soloist business and your future self will thank you. The link is in the show notes. That's it for this episode. Please join us next time for the Soloist Live. Bye bye.

You’ve heard the hype about AI, but how can you tactically and strategically use it to manage and grow your Soloist business? Global AI consultant Heidi Araya—who says “experts should be experts, not task-jugglers”—gets highly specific on how we can best use AI right now:Why your most productive use of AI starts with where friction currently lies in your business.Saving time: buying or building AI assistants for the time-intensive tasks typical with knowledge work.Creating a “librarian” to answer questions from your existing content—internally, externally (with or without monetizing).Protecting your proprietary content from being used to train large learning models (LLMs).Strategic use cases that may surprise you (and replace the thousands of dollars you might otherwise spend to uncover this data).LINKSHeidi Araya Website | LinkedInRochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramBIOHeidi Araya is a global consultant, keynote speaker, and patented inventor who has dedicated her decades-long career to driving multimillion-dollar business improvements using a people-first approach.Fueled by a desire to continuously learn and push boundaries, Heidi pivoted from leading large scale change initiatives inside organizations and has embarked on her third career, first upskilling in AI and then starting her own AI Agency. Leveraging her deep expertise in business operations, coaching, and change management, she now empowers solopreneurs, startups, and small businesses to unlock their full potential in the AI era.Heidi's passion lies in bridging the gap between cutting-edge AI technology and practical applications for small businesses. She doesn't just talk AI, she implements it. Her people-centric approach focuses on AI enablement, AI automation, and productivity coaching, allowing smaller businesses to compete with larger corporations.When she's not empowering businesses with AI, she enjoys raising butterflies, tackling home improvement projects, and staying active.BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLERESOURCES FOR SOLOISTSJoin the Soloist email list: helping thousands of Soloist Consultants smash through their revenue plateau.Soloist Events: in-person events for Soloists to gather, connect and learn.The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.TRANSCRIPT00:00 - 00:18Heidi Araya: I had 1 creative agency who their clients were asking for competitor insights. So it could go out and actually look for the competitors on the internet and come back and deliver a report and summary of whatever the competitors were so that they could go back and save them like 35 hours of work for each competitor report that they had to run.00:24 - 01:10Rochelle Moulton : Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast, where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton, and today I'm joined by soloist and AI consultant, Heidi Araya. Heidi is a global consultant, keynote speaker, and patented inventor who's dedicated her decades-long career to driving multi-million dollar business improvements using a people first approach. Fueled by a desire to continuously learn and push boundaries, she pivoted from leading large scale change initiatives inside organizations and has embarked on her third career, first upskilling in AI and then starting her own AI agency. Leveraging her deep expertise01:10 - 01:38Rochelle Moulton : in business operations, coaching and change management, she now helps solopreneurs, startups and small businesses unlock their full potential in the AI era. And when she's not empowering businesses with AI, she enjoys raising butterflies, tackling home improvement projects, and staying active. Heidi, Welcome. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here today. I love the combination of AI with raising butterflies. Somehow that just feels so perfect to01:39 - 01:46Heidi Araya: me. That's great. I just released 2 of them today this morning. They emerged. I was so happy to see them take flight. Oh,01:46 - 02:20Rochelle Moulton : I like that. I think we're going to work this metaphor into there somehow. So 1 of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show is that there is so much hype on AI right now. And I feel like you are the AI soloist whisperer with your smart, practical advice. It's like you jump over the hype to see what we can make work right now. So let's dive in. So first, before we talk about AI, let's talk about you And how you decided to focus your business on AI like if I remember rightly you started02:20 - 02:22Rochelle Moulton : out with a BA in Russian Yes,02:22 - 02:58Heidi Araya: yes, correct. I did start out with my BA in Russian But that part of my story is as soon as I graduated the Soviet Union fell So my dream of linking Soviet and Americans and building bridges was basically dead even before I got my diploma. So I had to pivot right away. I became a researcher, a technical writer, found my way into agile ways of working and what's called lean. So I was doing these large-scale transformations inside organizations and I always found these processes were broken and people were miserable at work because they couldn't actually get02:58 - 03:30Heidi Araya: work done. So it became my mission to alleviate misery in the workplace. And I don't think that's really changed. I think when I noticed the decline of my previous career in leading agile transformations inside large organizations, it just seemed like people, they need the help, but the companies didn't want to invest there. So luckily, I saw that AI was coming on the scene for years. And so I launched the opportunity to say, this is an opportunity that I can leverage, learn from, and then help other people. And at the time, when I first started thinking about03:30 - 03:49Heidi Araya: it, I thought, well, I'm going to lead, again, some initiative inside an organization. But by the time I ended my data science program at MIT, I had decided that, no, I have to go with boots on the ground talking to people. This is something that I want to impact small businesses and solopreneurs because I've just seen people struggle too much. So I was done with large organizations.03:50 - 04:27Rochelle Moulton : Well, I can totally relate to that. I just love this movement from Russian to MIT to AI. And so thank you for sharing that. I really wanted listeners to see that pivoting can happen fast when you've made up your mind to provide value in new ways. All right, let's 0 in on soloists and especially soloist consultants. So we are typically doing some combination of tasks from admin for the business to serving clients, maybe we're writing reports or we're conducting assessments to marketing. At least I do, I feel like I spend a ton of time doing that.04:27 - 04:46Rochelle Moulton : Writing articles, running podcasts, engaging on social media, managing an email list of prospects, and of course, their pipeline. So I know what we want to talk about here is some use cases for solos, but before we do that, should we start with where the listener is feeling friction in their business?04:47 - 05:14Heidi Araya: Yeah. Well, actually, the solopreneur consultants that I speak with and coaches that I speak with, you've hit it. They don't have enough time to work on their business, they're working in their business, they are struggling because they're, well let me give you 1 example. I was spending 5 to 10 hours a week creating meeting notes and task action items. After you meet with a potential customer or a customer, you have to send out action items and send out those emails. And I was never getting to it, or it would be late, and I would be so05:14 - 05:42Heidi Araya: exhausted. And so I actually automated the process. And I have an AI note taker that attends my meetings, like my little executive assistant, and then creates summary with task items. And when the call ends, within 5 minutes, I open up my draft emails. And I have the draft email with summary and action items. All I have to do is hit send because it's pre-populated with the people who were in the meeting. So I guess I just look for ways for people to reduce the things that they're doing. That's what I would call drudgery. So we can05:42 - 06:07Heidi Araya: free up time. Now I don't spend that time with that. And I already, the automations and the AI that I use inside, for myself, I guess I feel empathy, right? Because I am a solopreneur and I'm struggling with those exact same things. So I know each solopreneur has maybe slightly different struggles, but I think we also have a lot of similarities, like the marketing content creation proposal creation, responding to emails as some of the things that we have to time slice across our day.06:07 - 06:33Rochelle Moulton : Well, it also makes AI so much more accessible that we're not having to sit back and go, oh, how can I use AI instead of saying, okay, where's the friction? Where are the bottlenecks in my business now? And especially, what do I not like doing that maybe there is another way to do? Yes. So let's talk about those use cases. I know you've been developing and working with clients on quite a number of these. So where should we06:33 - 07:10Heidi Araya: start? Yeah, so I guess the first 1 that's very popular across my clients today is a custom AI assistant, I'll say. You can imagine it like chat GPT, but it's trained on you and it knows everything about you. So we train this robust backend on, you might have like 1 client, 17 years of blog posts, books, podcasts, talks, whatever it is, your website. So we train it on all the content that you think is relevant, and then that's accessible then. You can imagine that second brain knows everything about you that you have ever shared with the07:10 - 07:40Heidi Araya: world that you just chose to share with that. So then we actually build a brand for the person and find the brand voice. And so that's there as their own little personal assistant. So I use mine multiple times a day to everything from, you know, help me write this email to, I need to write a proposal, rephrasing things. And even for social media, that's 1 of the struggles we have as solopreneurs is we want to write more resonant content in social media that's not just coming from chat GPT. So now when that second brain knows all07:40 - 07:46Heidi Araya: about us, we come up with much more resonant content in minutes instead of hours.07:46 - 08:00Rochelle Moulton : So I just want to dive into that just a little bit more. I want to make sure that people understand this. I want to make sure I understand this. So you train it. So you're putting in audio from podcasts, you're putting in blog posts. Can you do books08:00 - 08:07Heidi Araya: as well? Yep, you can do books. And I have 1 client who has put all of his 28 books up in his second brain.08:07 - 08:16Rochelle Moulton : I love that. And so you could use this internally, right, to help you. I love that a byproduct of this is getting clear on your brand voice.08:16 - 08:39Heidi Araya: Yes, it is amazing. So that was 1 of the realizations. I wasn't sure. I tested it. I just wasn't sure how it would turn out. I was like, let me just ask, what's the brand voice? But it turned out amazing. So actually, we have a system where we work with clients to figure out certain things. Let's say they don't have a lot of content yet, but they want to get there and they want to start building their brands. So we have them fill out a little paper and we meet with them and we do a recording.08:39 - 09:01Heidi Araya: And that's part of the first thing that we would get up in their content. It turns out that the audio recording is so much richer than the blog post that you write, and you just communicate in a completely different way. So the content that comes out after you've done something like a recording is just so rich, and I guess that's what they find value in as well, right? This rich content that gives them really great stuff that they can use right away.09:01 - 09:07Rochelle Moulton : I'm sitting there thinking of 7 years of weekly podcast audio. Right.09:07 - 09:38Heidi Araya: Yes. And now, so that's an internal use. I know that you have a client who used it externally. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, absolutely. So I have several clients who they're actually using it externally as well. So 1 of them is, well, I have a few authors there. But 1 of them happens to have really high usage. It might get like 100 chats per week on the chat bot. And I guess the value there is so this person's content is in English, but people across the world want to understand this management philosophy09:38 - 10:05Heidi Araya: that he has. So people talk to the chat bot in up to 100 languages across the world 24-7. And so now he's seen as a thought leader in his space because he was the first 1 to have that there and people are getting value and I see some of the chat logs are, you know, thank you so much or this is the best response I've gotten on that. So people ask it anything from help me write a job description to how do I run this activity, to all kinds of things. So I view it as really10:05 - 10:33Heidi Araya: crucial for an author who wants to maybe expand their reach globally. And 1 of the other things is people don't have time to read whole books now. So they can now ask a very specific question. How do I do this particular thing, right? And get that answer right away in real time. So it's bite sized learning. Now in in that case, did this person monetize it or are they doing this? So actually he has to. 1 is open on his website and he did monetize the 1 with the 28 books.10:34 - 10:39Rochelle Moulton : Okay, well that makes sense because if you're giving away your book content, eventually nobody buys the books anymore.10:40 - 11:05Heidi Araya: Right. His website traffic is up 25 to 35%. He's getting more people purchasing the books and I mean now you know his you can just see the engagement everywhere that you know his posts are He also does actually share the funny things or the valuable things that people get out of there So from time to time he'll be sharing a little snippet of the chat bot gave this answer or someone asked this question. So it's also fun. Well, plus that sounds like11:05 - 11:25Rochelle Moulton : a social media post that just wrote itself. Yes, true enough. Yeah. So what do you say when authors are worried about putting their proprietary information into a chat bot that somehow this is going to wind up in the master scheme and be used inappropriately. How do you deal with that concern?11:25 - 11:59Heidi Araya: Yeah, so the unlike when you upload it to a public platform like chat GPT none of the data or none of the LLMs are training on your data. So it's secure from that perspective. It's not going to be trained. We're just accessing, you know, what's called the API. So it doesn't have access to your content. But otherwise I also have a very secure platform. That's ISO 27001 GDPR and SOC 2 compliant. So it's from that perspective they're very secure platforms now that customers don't have to worry about that. Maybe even someone hacking into the platform right.11:59 - 12:18Heidi Araya: So they're very secure platforms And there's another way where you can sort of upload it and then delete the actual source material so it stays trained, but no 1 can actually go and download the material afterwards. So there's various ways that you can secure it if people are concerned. And this person was actually concerned. This is his livelihood. So he wanted to make sure it was very secure.12:18 - 12:50Rochelle Moulton : Interesting. Interesting. So is this what would you call this the librarian? And you know, I've had this conversation with a couple people on the podcast where we said, gee, what we really want is a librarian, Because we have all this content. I mean, I do have 17 years of blog posts and 7 years of weekly podcasts. And it would be awesome to have, I'll say, somebody, in this case, something, go and be able to pull answers to certain kinds of questions from content. Is this the application that you would use to do that,12:50 - 13:21Heidi Araya: or is there another 1? So you could. I have a very robust platform that offers citations. And so, for example, if you asked a specific question and it referenced a podcast, like I have another customer who's an attorney and when it references some of the material from the podcast. For example, it's going to pull that in a citation and then put it there in the chat so you can see exactly where it came from. So unlike chat GPT where you just don't know where the answer came from, this actually tells you where in your content it13:21 - 13:35Heidi Araya: got that answer. So you also feel safer that it's not hallucinating, which is another thing we can talk about if you want to, and that you know exactly where that content is. So I've had customers say, "'Oh, I forgot about that blog post. Yeah, that was a good 1.13:35 - 14:01Rochelle Moulton : Yeah, I could see that. Okay. I mean, this is really interesting because there's a lot of people that really have concerns about this. And I think sometimes the concerns are really warranted. And I could see why you'd want to think twice. And in other situations, there are opportunities to manage the risk. So what else are you seeing, especially soloists and consultants, use AI for?14:01 - 14:32Heidi Araya: Well, a lot of them actually are looking to grow their brand on LinkedIn. And...

This episode is inspired by a listener question that I’ve been hearing a lot lately: how can you pull yourself out of a slump? And does a prolonged slump mean you’re not cut out to be a Soloist?The gift (and the hidden cost) of a great first year as a Soloist.Why hitting the wall—where your revenue tanks or plateaus—happens, especially with new-ish Soloists.When it’s time to invest in positioning yourself appropriately and developing a sales system to consistently fill your pipeline.One simple action to ensure you’re ready to turn around a difficult revenue situation.Why it’s never too late to niche down—and how to do it without wasting months getting it right.LINKSRochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramBOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLERESOURCES FOR SOLOISTSJoin the Soloist email list: helping thousands of Soloist Consultants smash through their revenue plateau.Soloist Events: in-person events for Soloists to gather, connect and learn.The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.TRANSCRIPT00:00 - 00:45Rochelle Moulton: If you haven't honed your messaging to focus on your ideal clients and buyers, and you haven't built a recurring system to find, nurture, and close those people, eventually you'll hit that wall. Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast, where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton. And today I want to share a listener question about pulling yourself out of a slump because I've been hearing variations on this lately and it's worth addressing. So this particular question goes like this. I'm feeling stuck in my business and I just don't know what00:45 - 01:21Rochelle Moulton: to do next. In the past, I hit over $100, 000 in revenue easily. And 2 years ago, I broke $200, 000 for the first time and I was thrilled. The last year though, has been pretty miserable. I just barely hit $100, 000 in 2023 and I won't in 2024 unless something changes dramatically. Is this a sign I need to go get a job or is this fixable? Okay, so let's call this person Chris because they didn't want to identify themselves in the show. Chris and I tossed a few emails back and forth, and this is what01:21 - 01:57Rochelle Moulton: else I learned that I think is important to talk about what to do next. 1, Chris is a B2B consultant with a respectable level of expertise, about 8 years in their specialty. 2, if we were to look at Chris's website and social media, we'd see they focus more on talking about their expertise versus identifying their ideal client and the specific problems they solve. 3, Chris has been in business for almost 4 years and they need about $100, 000 in revenue to meet their basic needs, but have targeted $200, 000 as their goal to build a Freedom01:57 - 02:33Rochelle Moulton: Fund for their future. So I think of that as their enough goal. They can tighten their belt for a year or so, but they need to be on a $100, 000 plus trajectory soon. 4, Chris does not have any sort of consistent pipeline of new clients, nor do they have any recurring revenue of any consequence. It's mostly project work. 5, Chris has been experimenting a bit, but since nothing is stuck yet, they're starting to doubt themselves to feel less confident. And finally, number 6, all that said, they really, really, really don't want to go back to02:33 - 03:10Rochelle Moulton: a job job. All of this is important information when you're making big life decisions. You know in your heart of hearts whether you want to stay independent or go back inside. And it's folly to ignore your very real need for revenue to support yourself and perhaps others. So what we have in Chris is someone who has tasted the good life of being a soloist and wants more. They need to make a certain level of income to feel like the risk of being independent is worthwhile, like they can create the right business for themselves. From what I03:10 - 03:47Rochelle Moulton: can see, Chris has hit a wall that many soloists do in the early years of their business. If you've been in a corporate role, built up some good creds and some relationships, hanging out your shingle can feel amazing that first year. Everybody wants to help the newbie and you get plenty of referrals or just, hey, will you do X for me? Kinds of projects handed over without any competition. Year 1 can look and feel surprisingly easy, almost effortless in terms of sourcing new clients. They basically come to you And your job is to close the deal.03:47 - 04:25Rochelle Moulton: And then year 2 rolls in. Now if you've got a highly marketable skill with the right reputation, year 2 might be even better than year 1. And if that's the case, like it was with Chris, it's Probably because you're getting referrals from clients or people in your circle who've seen what you can do. But if you haven't honed your messaging to focus on your ideal clients and buyers, and you haven't built a recurring system to find, nurture, and close those people, eventually you'll hit that wall. Now, I don't wanna make this sound like you have to04:25 - 04:59Rochelle Moulton: do all of this, niche down and build a sustainable sales system at once. The truth is it's usually a process. Year 1 is when you do a bunch of different things to see what sticks. The last thing you're probably thinking about in that first year is niching down because you're having so much fun getting to do cool work with people who actually pay you. It's a blast. And year 2 tends to be 1 of 2 things. Either your revenue falls off dramatically because you haven't been investing in relationships and business development. Or like Chris, you got04:59 - 05:41Rochelle Moulton: lucky with referrals and your revenue ticked up, even though you didn't do much to cultivate it. But eventually, most folks who stay in solo consulting realize they have to invest not only in positioning themselves appropriately, but in selling themselves and their services, which is usually some combination of spade work to turn up opportunities, maybe via some social media interactions, authority marketing, and one-to-one conversations with potential buyers. Chris hit the wall because they assumed that a couple or 3 years of relatively easy revenue Meant that it would simply continue on the upswing It probably won't make Chris05:41 - 06:21Rochelle Moulton: feel much better to know they aren't alone But the good news is there is most definitely a solution. And where it starts will probably feel weird, but it's essential to get your headspace where it needs to be to dial into your next best moves. So I want you to do something every single day that reminds you of your value. Because getting ghosted or figuratively kicked in the face while you're selling is hard. You need to be comfortable and confident in the value you deliver to bust through this current situation. Maybe you rummage through your digital or06:21 - 06:59Rochelle Moulton: physical glory box, you know, that place where you keep all those reminders of the high points of your career, or you give yourself a 5 minute speech while the theme from Rocky plays in the background. Whatever grounds you in the knowledge that you are providing significant value through your work. Remind yourself of how good you are. Okay? That's step 1. I want you to be in a clear place of confidence before making any major moves. Step 2. Once you're in a calm, confident headspace, I want you to take a clear-eyed view of your sales pipeline and06:59 - 07:35Rochelle Moulton: relationships. Is there some low-hanging fruit? People you already know you can help? If you're in a financial pickle, this is 1 place to start, but I'm throwing up a yellow caution flag. The worst time to try and sell something is when you're desperate. Because I guarantee you will say and do things you'd never consider if all was well. Sure, I can do that for half my regular price. Of course I'll work with you, even though every time I see your name in my inbox, I want to vomit. Or worse, you push when the best sales are07:35 - 08:12Rochelle Moulton: a pull. So assess the current state of your pipeline. Is it a jumble of different kinds of people looking for different sorts of help? Or can you identify pockets of folks who just need nurturing to become valued clients. Chris has a mixed bag. They have lots of people they can help, but there's not a lot of commonality to their industry, their title, or even their desired outcome. Which means step 3 is to identify a next level cut at their ideal client. In a perfect world, this would be step 2, but when you're in a revenue crunch,08:12 - 08:55Rochelle Moulton: most soloists handle this better after they've assessed the current state of their pipeline. 1 easy way to get to your next cut is to just do an autopsy on your past projects. Who did you most like serving? Who felt most like your people? Who didn't agonize over pricing, but saw the value of the outcomes you produce. Who is a natural fit with your talents and passions and has the budget to afford you. Instead of overthinking, just start experimenting. It's as easy as having a conversation with people you've identified as potentials. And social media connections like in08:55 - 09:35Rochelle Moulton: LinkedIn can easily grease the skids. As you're Having these conversations, ask questions about the outcomes they most value, and then take a good hard look at your services and products. Are they aligned with your clients most pressing problems? Are they priced in line with their value? You know, a good rule of thumb here is that you wanna deliver 10X the value of your price. So if you charge $10, 000, you want to deliver $100, 000 of value. That 10 to 1 ratio makes saying yes to you so much easier because it's a good investment. Now you09:35 - 10:15Rochelle Moulton: may need to adjust how you deliver. Maybe it's an advisory retainer versus a done for you service or vice versa. You may need to adjust when you deliver. Maybe your service is best before or after certain major events or specific calendar dates. And you may need to adjust the price for what you deliver, creating a ladder of increasing cost and value that makes sense to both your ideal client and your business model. You simply have to experiment bit by bit adjusting as you go. You're not going to get it right the first time at every step,10:15 - 10:52Rochelle Moulton: but you will learn what sticks and what doesn't. I'd also suggest you get yourself some help. It could be anything from a very low or 0 cost affinity group to serve as a sounding board or a group facilitated by an expert, all the way up to a one-to-one coach to help you jump those hurdles faster than you can on your own. Being a soloist doesn't mean you have to do it all on your own. It does mean that you want to adopt an attitude that says, I'm curious and always learning because chances are excellent that the10:52 - 11:24Rochelle Moulton: key to your next big leap is baked into those experiments. I would just keep experimenting, evaluating, and sometimes overhauling, and you'll set yourself firmly on the road to the kind of revenue growth you want. Okay. Now, as we wrap up this episode, if you haven't joined my email list yet, now is the time. Your soloist business and your future self will thank you. The link is in the show notes. That's it for this episode. Please join us next time for the Soloist Live. Bye bye.

Does your brain seem to work differently than those around you—maybe you even went solo so you could operate at your best? Coach (and former psychotherapist) Diann Wingert shares her experience advising the neurodiverse:Neurodiversity—what it is, why it’s a spectrum and how experts look at it today (hint: don’t think of it as a disorder).Why so many neurodiverse people become entrepreneurs—and serial entrepreneurs.The signs you might be on the ADHD spectrum (and what to do with that if you are).How understanding the unique challenges and opportunities of how your brain works plays into the design and success of your Soloist business.Why radical self-acceptance—whether you’re neurodiverse or not—is the way to go.LINKSDiann Wingert Shiny Objects | LinkedIn | InstagramRochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramBIOAfter a twenty-year career as a psychotherapist and mental health administrator, Diann pivoted into business strategy and coaching for neurodivergent entrepreneurs. Her passion is helping those who think differently build a profitable, sought-after business based on their unique brilliance.Diann has extensive experience working with neurodivergent individuals, especially those who are gifted, ADHD, or both. On the personal side, Diann loves dark fiction, strong coffee, and laughing out loud. She is also a Peloton enthusiast, practicing Buddhist, and host of the newly re-branded ADHD-ish podcast.BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLERESOURCES FOR SOLOISTSJoin the Soloist email list: helping thousands of Soloist Consultants smash through their revenue plateau.Soloist Events: in-person events for Soloists to gather, connect and learn.The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.TRANSCRIPT00:00 - 00:25Diann Wingert: Understanding, oh, there is a name for my difference. I am actually neurodivergent. I've always known I was different. And trust me, if you're listening to my voice and you are neurodivergent, You've always known it. We know we're different, but if we don't know why, what most people do is go to shame.00:30 - 00:45Rochelle Moulton: MUSIC Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton and today I'm so happy to welcome my new pal, the incomparable Diann  Wingert.00:45 - 00:47Diann Wingert: That's a great intro.00:48 - 01:35Rochelle Moulton: Well, wait, there's more. So after a 20-year career as a psychotherapist and mental health administrator, Diane pivoted into business strategy and coaching for neurodivergent entrepreneurs. Her passion is helping those who think differently build a profitable, sought after business based on their unique brilliance. And Diane has extensive experience working with neurodivergent individuals, especially those who are gifted, ADHD, or both. On the personal side, she loves dark fiction, strong coffee, and laughing out loud. She's also a Peloton enthusiast, practicing Buddhist, and host of the newly rebranded ADHD-ish podcast. Diane, welcome.01:35 - 01:37Diann Wingert: I'm so excited to have this conversation.01:38 - 02:01Rochelle Moulton: Well so am I. So let's just dive right in. And I first just want to understand, do you identify as a soloist yourself? I certainly do and proudly so. Yay. So what made you pivot from psychotherapy to coaching? I mean, there's some, you know, you could make some logical reasons why, but it really is a different way of operating. What made you go there? It's a really great question and02:01 - 02:34Diann Wingert: I love being asked it. On a practical note, my husband was interviewing for another job, which meant we were probably going to leave the state, if not the country, and you may or may not know that a therapy license is only good in the state you're in. But there was something going on with me personally, which is the bigger, deeper, and I think more important reason. I had outgrown the role of being a therapist. I wanted to be more directive. I wanted to help people move forward at a faster pace. And I was ready to work02:34 - 03:15Diann Wingert: with people who had done the work of healing and developing insight and were now wanting to move into growth, change and reaching their highest potential. So I knew that was no longer a therapy role. And I had also been a serial business owner, and I wanted to bring my 2 skill sets together as what I like to refer to as a psychologically savvy business coach. Because if you work with soloists and you know this, the business can only be as successful as the business owner is healthy, mentally, physically, spiritually. So I like to work with the03:15 - 03:19Diann Wingert: whole person so that both they and their business can thrive.03:19 - 03:39Rochelle Moulton: Oh, preaching. I know. You preaching. I know. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. So, I want to talk about neurodivergence. I still have the worst time saying that word. So define it for us and is there a spectrum that we should be aware of? Like how is this being discussed now? I feel like it changes moment by moment.03:39 - 04:16Diann Wingert: No lie. In fact, it's a really hot topic that it seems like came from out of nowhere and is suddenly on everybody's lips. So I'm going to talk about neurodivergence and neurodiversity because you're going to hear both. And I have a friend who's in the field who gets really upset when people get them confused. So I'm going to try to set the record straight. Neurodiversity means simply this, differences in the way people's brains work. The notion that there's no 1 right way for a brain to work really flies in the face of the psychiatric model, the04:16 - 04:56Diann Wingert: medical model, and the DSM, which I was a practitioner of for many years as a therapist. This notion that there's a right way for things to be and a wrong way, neurodiversity honors the fact that different brains work differently, and there's no 1 correct way. So neurodiversity means there's a range of ways that people perceive and respond to the world around them at that these differences can be embraced and even encouraged. Now neurodivergence means that you diverge from the norm. So we're kind of moving away from norms and calling it typical. So there are, instead of04:56 - 05:28Diann Wingert: saying, well, this is normal and this is abnormal, and I sat through so many courses in abnormal psychology, But if you embrace a diversity model and think, okay, there's different ways for people's brains to work, and by the way, it's not just brains, it's nervous system too, and that includes the emotions. If that's the way we're thinking now, then instead of normal and abnormal, we are talking about typical and atypical, neurotypical and neurodivergent. Does that05:28 - 05:29Rochelle Moulton: help? Yeah.05:29 - 05:30Diann Wingert: And I just05:30 - 05:47Rochelle Moulton: want to embrace the neurodiversity term. Like, I just love that because it just flies with everything else that I think about the world right now in terms of how we need to understand that everybody's not like us. Exactly. And just to add how your brain works as another form of diversity, I think, is05:47 - 06:28Diann Wingert: a really powerful way to think about it. Well, how your brain works, Rochelle, how your brain perceives self and others, how your brain perceives and responds to and interacts with the environment, This influences and affects everything. And it starts from birth because babies who are born to be neurodivergent are going to behave differently. They may be harder to soothe. They may be more irritable. They may be more excitable. They may be more active. They may be more passive. There's so many different ways that they may be different from babies that are developing typically, and it's why06:29 - 07:06Diann Wingert: conditions like autism and ADHD are still in the psychiatric manual and are still considered to be a form of neurodevelopmental disorders. But if we practice what I like to call radical self-acceptance, It's this is who I am, this is how I am. I might as well work with the brain and nervous system that I have instead of trying to conform to the norm and do so unsuccessfully. That's where I think the symptoms come from that most of us try to mask, hide, or medicate.07:07 - 07:36Rochelle Moulton: Yes. And I feel like that's what I keep reading about. Is it just my imagination or are more adults being diagnosed as, let's call it, neurodiverse right now? I mean, I think LinkedIn is a good example where so many people in my circle are already all of a sudden coming out, if you will, saying, hey, I've been diagnosed as this and it explains so much about my life and my experiences up to this point. So is this just happening more often now? Like what's happening?07:37 - 08:14Diann Wingert: It's not your imagination. It's like slug bug, okay? Or when we don't look for something, we don't find it. And that's 1 of the things I say over and over and over. There's so many generations of adults, most especially women who are realizing it midlife or later, some of them younger, some in their 20s and 30s, especially if they're on TikTok because there's a lot of creators. And, you know, God bless them. Like, there's so many people who are kind of what I call falling into these diagnostic categories by recognizing themselves on TikTok because there are08:14 - 08:49Diann Wingert: creators who are saying, hey, you may be autistic if or these are signs that you have ADHD. And while they're not professionally trained, most of them, and while, you know, nobody should be trying to diagnose people off social media or the internet, if you can help people see who they are and point them in the direction of learning more, I don't think there's any way that can be a bad thing. And frankly, in my opinion, and 1 of the reasons why I have rebranded my podcast ADHD-ish is that after many years of having the legal right08:49 - 09:20Diann Wingert: and responsibility and privilege even of diagnosing people with various mental disorders, I no longer think it's necessary or even beneficial for many people to choose that Because understanding who you are, understanding literally how you tick, what lights your brain up like a Christmas tree with dopamine, and what makes you feel like you just need to take a very long nap, These are the things that are important, not what diagnostic category you fit in or09:20 - 09:51Rochelle Moulton: how many symptoms you can check off the list. You know, I just, you can't see me, I'm bowing down right now. Because It's really a shift from viewing anything that's not typical as abnormal or a disease, disorder disease. And I just don't know how that's helpful in a situation where there isn't a prescribed thing to do, right? A medically prescribed thing to do. Or even if there is Rochelle, because here's the thing,09:51 - 10:21Diann Wingert: you know, a lot of people, and to your point when you say people are coming out with their, and that's the term I use to because a lot of my friends are queer, but it's like coming out with your ADHD or your autism or you might have heard of AudiHD, which is people that are realizing, oh, actually, I'm both ADHD and autistic. So they've combined the 2. Some people don't like any of those medically-oriented diagnostic labels, So they come up with clever ones like NeuroSpicy, which I think is great.10:21 - 10:22Rochelle Moulton: I've heard that 1.10:22 - 11:01Diann Wingert: I love that 1. Yeah. I love it. And here's the thing. I think for many people understanding, Oh, there is a name for my difference. I am actually neurodivergent. I've always known I was different. And trust me, if you're listening to my voice and you are neurodivergent, you've always known it. You may not have known what to call it. You may have had to deal with other people's labels and feedback, because trust me, you've got labels even if you don't have a diagnostic 1. People think of themselves as spacey. They think of themselves as scattered. All11:01 - 11:44Diann Wingert: the jokes about squirrel and rabbit holes and all that. We know we're different, but if we don't know why, what most people do is go to shame. Shame. Because, Let's face it, we are living in a world, by and large, that is made by and for the benefit of neuro-typical people, people who think in the typical way. And because all the systems were built by and for them, because they are neuro-normative, We try to fit our square peg into their round hole and it's either really tight, really uncomfortable, we just simply can't do it and we11:44 - 12:08Diann Wingert: opt out, which by the way is 1 of many reasons why so many of us become self-employed soloists. We don't want to go to meetings. We don't want to have arbitrary bureaucratic rules that make no sense to us. We want to explore and express our own creativity. We want to do things our way because we've tried to do it their way and it just wasn't a good time.12:08 - 12:26Rochelle Moulton: Amen. So, I mean, you've alluded to this, but let's get into this. So, if a listener has not been diagnosed with some form of neurodiversity or ADHD specifically, what are some signs that they might be? I wish we still had our cameras on.12:28 - 13:01Diann Wingert: When I was still a therapist, Many, many people came to me with diagnoses of anxiety, depression, both often, eating disorders, adjustment disorders. Some people were told they're bipolar, they're borderline. And once I started to get to know them, I thought, you know, is there any possibility that you could be ADHD? And of course, their jaw drops and they're like, why would you say that? I'm like, well, I'll tell you what, let's just make this a fun experiment. I'm gonna get out the manual and I'm gonna read you a list of things and every 1 of them13:01 - 13:40Diann Wingert: that applies to you most of the time and has across your lifespan, just put up a finger. By the time they've run out of fingers and we start having them take off their shoes, they get my point. Let's play along as the audience. Let's do it. Let's play along. Good, good, let's play along. Okay, now let me put in a caveat. The term neurodiversity or neurodivergence applies to a wide variety of brain-based differences, including, but not limited to, autism, ADHD, OCD, giftedness, specific learning disabilities. And because this is a relatively new and expanding field I'm sure13:41 - 14:11Diann Wingert: the list is going to be expanded over time because there are just so many different ways that people think, feel, and do things differently than the typical norms. So my expertise is in ADHD and in giftedness. So if it's okay, I'd like to just stick to the symptoms of ADHD because I don't think we have enough time to do all of the different lists. Okay? Let's do it. I'm not going to give them to you straight from the DSM because I choose not to use that anymore. I'm going to give them to you from like real14:11 - 14:25Diann Wingert: life, real things you would like, oh, I do that. Because if they're in clinical terminology, sometimes we go, I don't really relate to that. So are you ready? Ready. Okay. And you don't have to yell out yay or nay.14:25 - 14:28Rochelle Moulton: I'm going to keep some hash marks, so I'll be honest when we're done.14:28 - 14:57Diann Wingert: Girl, this could get cringy really fast, you know. And I actually also want people listening if they're not trying to drive a car, feed a baby or lift heavy machinery, like you can play along too. So here we go. We don't say yes or no, I'm just gonna go through the list. Okay, if you do this often and you always have, because by the way, there's no such thing as adult onset neurodivergence. If you are this way, you have always been this way. And it's something I cannot stress enough because a lot of people are like,14:57 - 15:35Diann Wingert: I became this way. Let me tell you this. If you are ADHD, you always have been, but it's possible that you had the safety structure, systems, and supports necessary to keep you functioning like a neurotypical person. Once you become a soloist and you remove yourself from those structures and supports, and then you suddenly find, oh my God, I think I'm ADHD. You always were, you just had workarounds and things that kind of kept you, you know, more organized and focused and so forth. So starting with this 1, 1 of my favorites, because I am very guilty15:35 - 16:17Diann Wingert: of this, interrupting others. And I'm just going to run quickly through so it doesn't get boring, because boredom is a life threatening condition. If you have ADHD. Interrupting others, easily distracted, forgetful, difficulty organizing tasks or possessions, Trouble staying seated. So you might not get up, you might fidget. Difficulty engaging in something quietly. Fidgeting or squirming. Trouble taking your turn. Like I'm terrible for playing games because I interrupt people, I start playing for the other side, it's terrible. Inability to focus or priority unless you're doing something you really, really like in which case you hyper-focus and you16:17 - 17:04Diann Wingert: forget everything else that isn't what's right in front of you. Feeling restless. Difficulty managing time. You either don't think you have enough time or you take on more than you have time to do. Trouble with impulsivity, impatience, trouble taking your turn when...

If you’ve ever hesitated to put your voice “out there” because you’re not the “right” size, shape, age, race, gender, orientation, know that you’re not alone. But it’s time to step up and be heard:Why it’s harder to sashay on stage with your megaphone when you’re different from the norm in your community (and yet you’ll be more memorable when you do).How creating a routine—a schedule—can keep the fear harnessed.Enlisting a partner(s)-in-crime to push you forward or back you up.Scoping out the “competition” to remind yourself of how you’re different—and why you need to publish.Using archetypes to rise above traditional thinking and claim a unique niche in your marketplace.LINKSRochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramBOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLERESOURCES FOR SOLOISTSJoin the Soloist email list: helping thousands of Soloist Consultants smash through their revenue plateau.Soloist Events: in-person events for Soloists to gather and learn.The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.TRANSCRIPT00:00 - 00:39Rochelle Moulton: Walking into a gym full of more or less fit people when you're struggling with your weight and fitness requires a certain kind of courage. The wrong coach, and I've witnessed a few of them, could easily make you turn around and never come back. Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast, where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton. And today, I want to tell you a quick story and then talk about why your voice needs to be out there and we can talk a little bit about the how. So I00:39 - 01:14Rochelle Moulton: go to a gym where you have the option of buying sessions with 1 of their staff personal trainers. Now I've been a member there for about 5 years, so I've seen trainers come and go. And with few exceptions, they're usually in their 20s or early 30s, incredibly fit with the patience to work with whoever walks through the door. Sometimes, when I have nothing better to do, I eavesdrop on their conversations with clients to hear how they encourage or explain or just shoot the breeze. And it's kind of fun, you know, professionally really to see their techniques01:15 - 01:52Rochelle Moulton: and personality and action with all different kinds of people. But every once in a while, an outlier shows up. And I've been watching this 1 guy who's been around maybe a year. He doesn't look like any of the usual characters. He appears maybe 30 to 40 pounds overweight, and he wears their uniform in a baggy style, not like any of the other gym gods. And he seems like a nice enough guy, and he has 1 of the most infectious laughs I've ever heard. But I kept wondering, would someone serious who wants to get fit choose the01:52 - 02:26Rochelle Moulton: guy who doesn't look like he's figured it out for himself yet? Now, he seems consistently busy, and I've been idly wondering how he was doing. And then yesterday, watching him with a client made me see his appeal. Overheard his discussion with a new client who had lost 35 pounds and hit his first goal to get his weight down to 300 pounds. Now this coach was so supportive, he immediately engaged the guy in talking about what they could do together to get him to his next goal, which was 250 pounds, and about how it wasn't just a02:26 - 02:58Rochelle Moulton: number on a scale that defines success. They were clicking on so many levels, I was in awe. Because walking into a gym full of more or less fit people when you're struggling with your weight and fitness requires a certain kind of courage. Like the wrong coach, and I've witnessed a few of them, could easily make you turn around and never come back. I'm not gonna lie, I teared up a bit at how this man was being seen and supported in a way that would help him become the person he wanted to be. So why am I02:58 - 03:37Rochelle Moulton: telling you this story? Because it is so easy, I've done it myself, to decide that you aren't the right size, the right shape, the right gender, the right race, orientation, age, to deliver whatever message it is that you want to share. And when you're whatever is accepted as the norm, like say a straight white cis male, it's much easier to sashay onto social media, for example, and pull up your megaphone. But if, for whatever reason, you feel different and that difference is holding you back, I'm here to tell you it's time to let that go. Not03:37 - 04:13Rochelle Moulton: saying it's easy, let me tell you there are days I can't even look at LinkedIn, never mind post there, but getting your voice out there, Your uniquely powerful voice from your lived experience is everything. You will help people in ways you can't even imagine. So I'm gonna share a few tips and tricks to get yourself in the habit of sharing your ideas, of sharing how you help your ideal clients and buyers. So number 1 is set yourself a routine. Holding yourself accountable to a schedule helps in a few ways. I mean, first, it gets the time04:13 - 04:43Rochelle Moulton: to do it into your calendar, into your routine. Say you're going to do something as simple as posting a LinkedIn piece twice a week. Maybe you'll experiment at first to see what days and times work for you, but you know you want to deliver 2 posts a week. So you add that to your production schedule. Your client work, your business development, your writing, think of them as all part of what you produce each week. How much time do you need to write those 2 posts? How far in advance do you want to prep them? And there's04:43 - 05:18Rochelle Moulton: no 1 right answer here. You'll decide what works for you. My point here is when you think about pushing out ideas, it takes a lot of pressure off if you just make it part of your routine. Okay, number 2, enlist a partner in crime. Whether that's a friend, a spouse, your coach, find someone who will read or watch or listen to your stuff and give helpful feedback. I got in the habit early on of reading my draft emails to my husband. Now it has 2 advantages. 1 was that hearing it out loud pointed out where I05:18 - 05:50Rochelle Moulton: was too formal or too wordy. It gives me more of the reader perspective. And I actually do that with everything I write now to read it out loud first. The other is that the hubs is not in our sort of business. He's in commercial production. So he listens to it with a different ear and he will tell me when I'm being too buzzwordy or I get on my high horse. Co-hosting my first podcast was another way of punching through a whole bunch of concerns I had 8 years ago. Having a buddy podcast meant if I had05:50 - 06:25Rochelle Moulton: a bad day, he'd be on his game and vice versa. And we split the duties of production and marketing so it was never overwhelming and we always had each other's backs, which when you're a soloist is especially wonderful. And then third, you could do a very deep dive on what your competition, and I use that word loosely, is doing. So hear me out on this, because I can almost hear you saying, what, why would I want to copy them? Well, you don't. What cruising the competition is good for is a big old reminder of how you're06:26 - 07:01Rochelle Moulton: different. Whether that's like the trainer at my gym who doesn't look like a traditional trainer, or whether it's much deeper than that. Here's a way to look at it. I'm willing to bet that your space has a few archetypes. There will be the sage, for example, someone who's deeply researched an aspect of your niche, and they're constantly updating the industry with their findings and their viewpoints, right? You know somebody like that. There is usually a warrior, right? The 1 who takes a contrarian position and dukes it out with everybody. We know those. The alchemist who seems07:01 - 07:42Rochelle Moulton: to midwife those deep transformations and is always looking for the magic. Artist who's constantly creating or making new things. Maybe there's an Avenger who's looking for justice and protects the underdog. That's the 1 railing on how the system doesn't work or is rigged. There's the storyteller who's gifted at metaphor and explaining meaning through stories. And the pioneer who's discovering and exploring new things. Your space might even have a gambler, the 1 who plays the odds and then convinces you to go along. And there's probably at least 1, judging by LinkedIn, probably way too many, playing the07:42 - 08:19Rochelle Moulton: hero, right? The 1 who swoops in and fixes it all. The advantage of thinking in archetypes as you look around you is that you realize that it's not about you. Not really. It's about how you best share your point of view about how you communicate lines up with your genius zone. Because the more you 0 in on that, the more likely you'll become unforgettable to your ideal clients and buyers. So looking at people you may see as intimidatingly ahead of you as just archetypes, take some of the sting out of it. Instead of saying, oh, I08:19 - 08:54Rochelle Moulton: can't talk about X because Jesse already is the authority, you might say, Jesse is acting the sage. He's been doing this forever, But I'm a pioneer here. I have some new ideas that could attract people just like me. And when you put it from that perspective, how could you not put your point of view out there? Plus, if you start seeing yourself through that pioneer lens, it will impact the kind of language you use, who you start aligning with, and how you develop your expertise as you grow. So, listen, here's the thought I want to leave08:54 - 09:33Rochelle Moulton: you with today. Your voice is valuable. It's 1 of a kind, and you have no idea how many people you might impact positively if you just use it for good. And in case you're wondering why I haven't said anything about monetizing your voice, I'll tell you. There is so much pressure, especially on newer soloists, to monetize your expertise. And of course, that's the ultimate goal. But if you're having trouble getting your voice out there, decouple it from making money. Make it about helping the people you care most about in ways that only you can. And go09:33 - 09:50Rochelle Moulton: get them. Now, as we wrap up this episode, if you haven't joined my email list yet, now is the time. Your soloist business and your future self will thank you. The link is in the show notes. That's it for this episode. Please join us next time for The Soloist Life. Bye-bye.

Have you ever considered moving yourself and your business to a new country? Content marketer Casey Kelly-Barton did just that and shares her challenges and opportunities as an ex-pat:Her journey to niching into the intersection of three related niches— including how niching bumped up her revenue and reduced her hours worked.Meeting the challenges to building a business while single-parenting after a divorce (and the most freeing thing she let go of).Why she decided to move countries with her business—and how long she let the idea simmer first.How she identified and evaluated target locations including the resources she tapped to explore the expat experience in advance.The dividends from intensely focusing on that critical first year of transition.LINKSCasey Kelly-Barton Website | LinkedInRochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramBIOCasey Kelly-Barton provides content marketing and brand development for B2B companies in cybersecurity, fintech, and fraud prevention.When she started her business, she was a newly single parent looking for ways to make the most of her writing and strategy skills.Now, her business is well established with a roster of clients she enjoys working with, her kids are grown and she works from Portugal, where she moved in late 2023.BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLERESOURCES FOR SOLOISTSJoin the Soloist email list: helping thousands of Soloist Consultants smash through their revenue plateau.Soloist Events: in-person events for Soloists to gather, connect and learn.The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.TRANSCRIPT00:00 - 00:28Casey Kelly-Barton: So I started researching and I was very methodical. I made a list of countries that met my criteria for like weather, time zones, languages, blah, blah, blah. And so I was looking at Latin America and Central America pretty carefully because I speak Spanish. My parents are still in Texas. It would be time zone friendly for my American clients. And then both my kids ended up in the EU.00:32 - 01:11Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton and today I'm joined by Soloist and new expat, Casey Kelly Barton. She provides content marketing and brand development for B2B companies in cybersecurity, fintech, and fraud prevention. When she started her business, she was a newly single parent looking for ways to make the most of her writing and strategy skills. Now her business is well established with a roster of clients she enjoys working with. Her kids are grown and she works from Portugal where she moved01:11 - 01:32Rochelle Moulton: from the US in late 2023. Casey, welcome. Hi, thank you for having me, Rochelle. I'm so glad to be here. I'm excited to talk to you today. Yeah, me too. So when we met and I heard that you were moving countries, I just knew you had to come on the show to talk about your experiences because for some people, that's living the dream.01:33 - 01:39Casey Kelly-Barton: Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. I do get a lot of questions about it. And so I'm happy to talk about that in detail.01:39 - 01:47Rochelle Moulton: Well, first off, let's go back to when you started your business. So what made you start the business? And when did you start?01:48 - 02:27Casey Kelly-Barton: I started the business, I was newly divorced and I had been doing some freelancing and some education off and on for years. And I thought, okay, now it's time to get serious about this, I was a strong writer, I had good writing and strategy skills, but I needed something that I could tailor to my own schedule and that wouldn't have me away from home 50, 60 hours a week. So I needed something that I could do independently. And at that point, I just started working my contacts and seeing who had freelance writing needs. And that was02:27 - 02:51Casey Kelly-Barton: the beginning of it. At the beginning, I did not have my niches. I was basically taking on any and all writing assignments for companies that needed it, like performance marketing, elder care, all kinds of things, just to build a portfolio, build some skills, and to really test and see if this particular path would work for me and my family. Well, obviously it did.02:52 - 02:57Rochelle Moulton: Do you remember how long it took you to get your first $100, 000 a year?02:57 - 03:29Casey Kelly-Barton: Oh, it took a while. I won't lie because, you know, my kids were young, 7 and 12 when I started this. And so it took me, I want to say, 6 or 7 years to get to that point. So it was not an overnight thing And part of that was because I didn't have the niche. It got to a point where I was just taking on, you know, the strategy that worked at the beginning of let's try everything and see if this works. Let's take on all the gigs you can find. Kind of that new freelancer.03:30 - 04:06Casey Kelly-Barton: I don't want to say panic, but definitely an eagerness to book work. When I started, I don't know if you're familiar with Carol Tice, but she used to run a freelancer, sort of an online forum or a clinic. And she said, you know, You need to niche and not just take everything that comes along because you're never going to move up your income if you are just a generalist and So I just started working on the things that really interested me which were fraud prevention cybersecurity fintech hadn't really exploded yet, but it did pretty soon after.04:06 - 04:22Casey Kelly-Barton: And it's related enough that I was able to capitalize on that. But it was really once I started to niche and develop some some expertise in specific fields that was hard for clients to find. That's when my income really took off.04:22 - 04:51Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, I think it's interesting with writers, especially, I think a lot of writers just have this mindset that it's about writing and just like it's the craft of writing and getting really good at that. And that's important, but it's how you apply the craft, which is where you make the money and where you can get paid more. And Carol Tice had it right about Nisha. So how long did it take you to 0 in on those 3?04:53 - 05:24Casey Kelly-Barton: Fraud prevention came first. And that came, I had a client who requested that I handle, it was an agency client, and I still work with them. I've worked with them for a decade. They, I want to say it was like 2014. So 3 years in, I had somebody come to me and say, we have this account, it's fraud prevention. We're having just a devil of a time finding writers who are A, interested enough to learn about this niche and B, willing to actually commit to it for a while and do the homework. And I was like,05:24 - 05:53Casey Kelly-Barton: I'll do it. And I found it was really, really interesting to me. And that's where I just started to invest in that. And because fraud prevention has kind of a natural overlap with cybersecurity, I was able to capitalize on that and then start moving into those other areas. And then when FinTech startup ecosystem really started to grow, Well, a lot of what they need is cybersecurity and fraud prevention to protect their data and protect their customers. So that was just a natural segue.05:53 - 06:00Rochelle Moulton: That's the tie because I had a different idea of FinTech in my head. So that makes sense then I see how the 3 are tied together.06:00 - 06:08Casey Kelly-Barton: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, and cyber security now is kind of ending up in everything because everything is connected. So yeah.06:09 - 06:19Rochelle Moulton: So do you think you'll niche down further into 1 of those 3? Or do you find that the combination really suits you?06:19 - 06:57Casey Kelly-Barton: I like the combination of them. And honestly, they're so interrelated that there was a spate of articles earlier this year about the cybersecurity convergence, which is basically the idea that everything needs to have cybersecurity built into it. Anything that's online has to be protected. Anything that handles money or data needs to also have fraud prevention. And a lot of it, if you're moving money and you're doing it online, there's going to be some sort of fintech aspect to it. So I kind of feel like the niche is niching itself down without me having to do anything06:57 - 07:32Casey Kelly-Barton: necessarily. Yeah. There's a little overlap with RegTech, like regulatory and compliance and insurance. So I could continue to niche into those areas, but I feel like there's enough going on in cybersecurity and fraud prevention, especially with the 4 horsemen of AI, enabling this sort of escalation of the spy versus spy, good guy versus bad guy strategies. I kind of feel like I'm good for now, but these niches touch on enough other areas that if I needed to switch or refine, I can.07:32 - 07:42Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, I was kind of visualizing a highway when you were describing it, because it feels like these things are all connected. It's like you've cornered the market on a piece of the highway.07:42 - 07:54Casey Kelly-Barton: Yeah, yeah. And yeah, I mean, there are plenty of other good cybersecurity and fraud prevention and fintech writers out there. I just make explicit the fact that I work at the intersection of these areas.07:55 - 08:22Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, that's a niche and it's how you build authority. So I want to switch over just for a moment and talk about single parenting because it is a topic that comes up more than you might expect, certainly in my Slack channel. But it's single parenting while you're building your business. So we definitely have some listeners that can relate. I mean, like, what was that like for you? What kind of challenges did you have to deal with for that?08:22 - 08:54Casey Kelly-Barton: It was hard. It was hard, I won't lie. It was super hard. And it was super hard, even though I had, their father was supportive. Like, you know, he paid his support. He was active in the kids' lives. So I wasn't without support the way some single parents are or newly divorced parents can be sometimes. So I had that. I also had a pretty strong social and professional network, But it was hard. It was hard helping my kids adjust to a new normal. It was hard learning all the things that I needed to learn as quickly08:54 - 09:32Casey Kelly-Barton: as I could so that I could start ramping up my business. Like I would fall asleep listening to podcasts. Like I would work, I would deal with the kids, I would fall asleep listening to podcasts, and there was about a year or 2 where I had literally no time for myself unless it was like the weekend when the kids were with their dad and I would do something really wild and self-indulgent like lay on the couch and watch a nature documentary for an hour You crazy fall asleep. I know So it was it was hard. Yeah09:34 - 10:03Casey Kelly-Barton: It was just my time was not my own, but I kept telling myself that if I invested this time and just went all in and went really hard up front, that I would be able to be in a better position and have more time and more options later on. Which safe to say that that happened. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was a gamble though, right? Anytime you're like, you know, you don't know that it's going to work out when you're in the thick of it. But I thought, well, you know, I got to do something. So10:03 - 10:04Casey Kelly-Barton: I'm going to commit to this.10:05 - 10:31Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. And I think a lot of times when we talk on this podcast, you know, we hear from people who've really been able to create a business where they have a lot of free time, what we don't always hear about is the messiness in the beginning. Yeah. If you're not sure, if you're experimenting. Some people start this knowing exactly what they want to do. Other people are following their nose to see what's going to work. So yeah, I appreciate you sharing the messy beginning.10:31 - 10:59Casey Kelly-Barton: Yeah, yeah. Oh, and it was messy. We were talking about this a little bit earlier in the green room, I guess. But there were a lot of things I just had to let go because my priorities were my children's wellbeing and my business. And so there was 1 6 month period, I had a friend who said, well, how are you doing all this? And I told her, I said, you know, I haven't cleaned my house in 6 months. And I was expecting as soon as it popped out of my mouth, I was like,10:59 - 11:01Rochelle Moulton: oh, no, judgment, judgment.11:01 - 11:03Casey Kelly-Barton: Yeah. Yeah. And she looked at me and11:03 - 11:24Rochelle Moulton: she said, oh, thank God. She said, I am so relieved to hear that I'm not the only 1. Yes. Well, if you look at Instagram, it looks like everybody has 47 children, works a million hours a week, and has a perfectly clean and well-organized home. So yeah, that's not reality for most of us.11:24 - 11:48Casey Kelly-Barton: It's not reality. And you know, the thing is, it's like having a clean house. I mean, I love a clean house. But at the time, there was no money for a cleaner. There was no time for me to do it and I thought You know, how is dusting all the corners gonna further my goals? It's not so I'm gonna put it on the back burner for now That dust will still be there when I get back to it and it was Good for you. I like that.11:48 - 12:06Rochelle Moulton: I like that. So I'm just really dying to talk about your expat experience. I know you know that. This idea of picking up and moving countries with your business. So first, what made you decide to move? Was this a big adventure? Was this like a very carefully calculated thing?12:06 - 12:38Casey Kelly-Barton: This was a project I had been working on since 2010. Well, even before that, I had always wanted to live abroad just for the experience of doing so. I was born and raised in Texas with the exception of 18 months when I lived in Atlanta. I've lived and worked in Texas all my life. And, you know, it's a big state with a lot going on, but it's also just 1 part of the world. And early on working on my business, I was working for an elder care, like information provider. And so I was doing a lot12:38 - 13:11Casey Kelly-Barton: of research on things like the cost of care when you get older, who pays for what? And looking at the numbers and looking at the trend lines, I thought there is no way that I can afford to grow old in the United States. And then once I got a divorce, I thought, well, I can kind of do what I want once the kids are grown. And so I started researching and I was very methodical. I made a list of countries that met my criteria for like weather, time zones, languages, blah, blah, blah. And so I was13:11 - 13:46Casey Kelly-Barton: looking at Latin America and Central America pretty carefully because I speak Spanish. My parents are still in Texas. It would be time zone friendly for my American clients, and then both my kids ended up in the EU. There goes that plan. And they were like, well, you should come over here. They said, but don't live in the same countries as us because that would be creepy and weird because Europe is so tiny, you know, that if I'm in the same country as them, I'll practically be looking into their living room window. So I thought about it13:46 - 14:20Casey Kelly-Barton: and I thought, well, let's try it. And so, yeah, but I spent about a decade researching and planning and making some little trips here and there when time and money allowed to check out different places. So, yeah, the fact that my kids ended up in the EU really kind of changed that calculation. And Portugal has a nice clear, I mean, I say this, even though Portugal right now, their immigration agency is going through some major logistical and technical challenges that weren't present when I applied. But of all the countries I looked at in the EU, they14:20 - 14:34Casey Kelly-Barton: were the ones that had the clearest immigration process, everything spelled out in detail, and the clearest path to a dual citizenship in several years, should I choose to pursue that?14:35 - 14:43Rochelle Moulton: So I'm curious because I love Portugal. I could totally see why someone would want to live there. Why not Spain if you spoke Spanish?14:43 - 15:18Casey Kelly-Barton: Right. I asked myself that a lot. I did look at Spain extensively, and this was before, you know, they just, I want to say at the end of last year, maybe it was right when I was almost done with my visa application process for Portugal, when Spain finally came through with their digital nomad visa. Before that, they only had something called a non-lucrative, which you were supposed to be retired. And depending on who you talk to, there either were or weren't restrictions on earning money from outside Spain. And like I talked to immigration attorneys in Spain,15:18 - 15:48Casey Kelly-Barton: I talked to different people. They said, well, it depends. It depends on your consulate. It depends on who is interpreting the rules. And I thought, well, I can't move for it depends. And Portugal's guidance was very clear. They had a visa that was in the category that fit my needs. And they were like, bring us this, this, this, and this. And, you know, it'll take a while because it's there's bureaucracy, just like everywhere. But, you know, do these things and this will be the outcome. And I was like, yeah, clarity. I like that.15:48 - 16:09Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. And I just Portugal, I've been all over Europe. And there...

Demand is feeling lighter—you’re getting fewer inquiries or buyers seem to be more price-sensitive and you’re starting to worry about the economy. What do you do next?Why it doesn’t matter what the economy is doing when you play your own game.How “Mariah” added a new revenue stream when her primary one started losing steam (and a low-risk way to experiment with pricing).A tiny niching down test that can pay big dividends.Why experimenting with tactics can sometimes uncover a profitable new direction.When to consider offering group options including paid communities.LINKSRochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramBOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLERESOURCES FOR SOLOISTSJoin the Soloist email list: helping thousands of Soloist Consultants smash through their revenue plateau.Soloist Events: in-person events for Soloists to gather and learn.The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.TRANSCRIPT

Thinking about hosting a live event, but not sure how to make it well-attended, profitable and worth your time? Renowned author, speaker and creative firm advisor David C. Baker lifts the curtain on his wildly successful MYOB conference and live events:The role of in-person live events in David’s expertise business model (plus a peek at the numbers for his four revenue streams).How his pandemic pivot from in-person gatherings became a new lead generation source—and removed travel from his client engagements.Why his conferences and events include multiple opportunities for attendees to engage with each other; he shares a few ideas you can borrow.His philosophy on outside speakers: how he chooses, pays and manages them.The one thing you must do if you want to make sure your conference doesn’t lose money.LINKSDavid C. Baker MYOB Conference | LinkedIn | TwitterRochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramBIODavid C. Baker is an author, speaker, and advisor to entrepreneurial creatives worldwide. He has written 6 books, advised 1,000+ firms, and keynoted conferences in 30+ countries.His work has been discussed in the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Forbes, USA Today, BusinessWeek, CBS News, Newsweek, AdWeek, and Inc. Magazine. He lives in Nashville, TN.His two most recent books can be found here and here. His work has also been featured in the NY Times, where he was recently referred to as “the expert’s expert”. He co-hosts the most listened to podcast in the creative services field (2Bobs).BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLERESOURCES FOR SOLOISTSJoin the Soloist email list: helping thousands of Soloist Consultants smash through their revenue plateau.Soloist Events: in-person events for Soloists to gather and learn.The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.TRANSCRIPT00:00 - 00:17David C. Baker: You know, here's the easiest way to lose money with an event. When I learned this, my whole world changed about events. Do not sign up for room blocks because you're having to guarantee them. And then you have this pressure to sell and then you cheapen your brand by starting to beg people to come to these things and so on.00:24 - 00:39Rochelle Moulton: Hello hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton and today I am thrilled to welcome none other than the unforgettable David C. Baker. Yay!00:40 - 00:46David C. Baker: That's scary. There's lots of reasons to be unforgettable. I hope I'm on the good column of that, right?00:46 - 01:29Rochelle Moulton: Well, you are in my book. So, David is an author, speaker, and advisor to entrepreneurial creatives worldwide. He's written 6 books, advised 1, 000 plus firms and keynoted conferences in 30 plus countries. His work has been discussed in the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Forbes, USA Today, Business Week, CBS News, Newsweek, Adweek, and Ink Magazine. His 2 most recent books are The Business of Expertise, which is a classic. So if you haven't read it, go grab your copy now, and Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors. His work has also been featured in the New York Times, where01:29 - 01:43Rochelle Moulton: he was referred to as the expert. Finally, he co-hosts 2 Bobs, which is the most listened to podcast in the creative services field. And in addition to all those superlatives, he's a generous guy to boot. So David, welcome.01:44 - 01:57David C. Baker: Thank you. It's really great to connect with you again. We had you speak at 1 of our live events, which I guess is what we're talking about, and it's very popular, so it's really great to do this. I enjoyed seeing the invitation from you. It was great.01:57 - 02:18Rochelle Moulton: Awesome. I like it when people are happy to see my name in their inbox. So, you know, you just alluded to what I want to talk about because we literally have a treasure trove of things that we could talk about from your work that would help solo us. But I really like to focus in on your live in-person events because I don't know that you've ever really talked about how you use them in your business, or if you have, I haven't heard it.02:18 - 02:46David C. Baker: Yeah. So I've been doing this for 30 years now and I didn't have live events in the early days. I kind of learned about how to do them from somebody that was, he wasn't a real partner, but we did a lot of work together. And I don't know, I remember maybe 7 or 8 years into it, I decided to do them. And there's a bunch of reasons why I do them. 1 is it's an income stream. So I don't want to put all my eggs in 1 basket. So that's 1 reason I do it. Another is02:46 - 03:20David C. Baker: sort of Legion. So it's a way to sample the advice in a sense. And so I've never tracked it exactly, but a lot of people that eventually work with me in a consulting arrangement came to an event. And they tell me that they came to a particular event, I don't remember them, and they tell me that that's what encouraged them to work together. So that's the second reason. The third reason is because I just enjoy them. I really like them. I hate virtual events, and I think that's just me. I think it's like I just need03:20 - 03:44David C. Baker: to get over it probably, but I just like the in-person things. I like the drama of being in front of a group of people who can ask you any question at all. And then lately over the last decade I've realized, oh, this isn't really about what I or speakers I'm inviting or talking about. It's about them connecting with each other as well. So, anyway, those are the 3 big reasons why I'd like to do them.03:45 - 03:52Rochelle Moulton: You know, I just have to ask about that, because I've always felt like you're probably an introvert. Is that true?03:52 - 03:56David C. Baker: Oh yeah, I hate people just in general. Yeah.03:57 - 04:15Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. And the reason I want to point this out is because a lot of introverts are really exceptional on stage because they're so hyper-focused on the experience of the audience, and most introverts will not get on a stage without knowing absolutely everything they need to know to be up there.04:15 - 04:28David C. Baker: Ah, that's interesting, yeah. Yeah, I'd much prefer speaking in front of 5, 000 people for an hour with no preparation than talking with individuals after that presentation when I walk off the stage. Yeah.04:28 - 04:31Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, I call those situational extroverts.04:31 - 04:35David C. Baker: Yeah, right, right, where you're acting for a few minutes and then you're exhausted, right?04:36 - 05:08Rochelle Moulton: Exactly, exactly. So, you know, when I spoke at your NYOB conference in Atlanta, I felt like I really got a firsthand taste of what I feel is a deep community that you've built, and I started to say just from that 1 offering, but it may be from the other events you've had over the years. So maybe we could just dive in and talk about your business model. So you're not a soloist, but it's possible that many people listening might think of you that way because you've got this really high profile as an authority in the creative05:08 - 05:16Rochelle Moulton: space. But when you think about your business model, how do you make money in your business? I'm not asking how much, but how do you make it?05:16 - 06:02David C. Baker: Yeah. Oh, I don't mind answering all those questions. So, there's 2 of us full-time. The other 1 is actually my oldest son, Jonathan. And we bill about 1.7 on average a year. And we divide the income into big streams. So there's events, there's the book revenue, there's the M&A side, which he runs, and then there's my side, the advisory side. The book revenue is anywhere from 70 to 120 a year. Those are the royalties. The events are probably, I don't have the exact number, but probably around 400, something like that.06:02 - 06:06Rochelle Moulton: With presumably higher expenses than the other revenue streams.06:06 - 06:35David C. Baker: Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah, but a typical event where we have maybe 20 people, like we just did a pop-up event, which I just said, hey, listen, I think there's room for this. Let's just see if we can make it happen. It was last minute. We had 20 people. They each paid $3, 000, so that was $60, 000. Our expenses were, I think, $20, 000, so we would make $40, 000 on that. And then the rest of the money is split basically evenly between the M&A and the advisory side. So that's how the money comes in. So06:35 - 07:07David C. Baker: that's what I mean by revenue streams because like when things are slower on the business side, I just view that as okay I'm gonna work on the next book and and then when things are super super busy I just put it off. We're not super busy right now, but we tend to be very busy most of the time, but doing very different things. So maybe it swings to M&A or maybe it swings to, okay, business isn't good for these people, let's help them get new business in, or business is great for these people, let's help them07:07 - 07:26David C. Baker: manage growth. So that kind of helps even it out a little bit on the advisory side. But I really like, it's not just protection to have these income streams, it's also about lead generation. So the books are written, like they make money, yeah, but I want people to hire me. The events, they make money, but I want people to hire me07:26 - 07:40Rochelle Moulton: too. Yeah, I mean, I think that's what's so interesting to a lot of soloists that are early on in the journey because, you know, they don't necessarily think of books as a revenue stream, but as legion, they can be priceless if you're an authority or an expert's expert.07:41 - 08:11David C. Baker: Yeah, yeah, even if you don't make money, and the book doesn't sell, and it doesn't make you famous, a book is still worth writing because it forces you to spend a lot of time with the topic and you'll be able to speak so much more confidently about the topic and then if the book does happen to make money, that's great. The truth is most books don't make money. They really don't. I consider myself really fortunate that my books make money because I think it's unusual and you know what, let me add something. Maybe you were going08:11 - 08:43David C. Baker: to get to this later, but I'll pretend I'm the host here a second. But You know, none of this stuff works. None of these income streams work unless you have a central connection with your audience. And in my case, that's a newsletter subscription list. It's free. It comes out weekly. But that is the only way I get people to listen to the podcast or to buy a book or to come to an event. It's having tens of thousands of people, in my case it's it's 14, 000 so it's like it's 10, 000 plus half a 10,08:43 - 08:57David C. Baker: 000. People who get this weekly email, that is the lifeblood of my business. And I couldn't do any of these things unless I had that, right? You can't do an event unless you have people who already know of you and think of you well enough.08:57 - 09:33Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, I mean, it's hard enough to get, for some people to get somebody to buy a $20 book, but to shell out $1, 000, $2, 000, $3, 000. Yeah, you've got to have a lot more built-in trust. So what's interesting, so the events are a decent percentage revenue-wise of your total revenue, probably quite expensive on some level, especially the big 1. But, so what happened when we had the pandemic years, because it wasn't really just 1 year, because I'm thinking your speaking would have dropped off, of course, as it all did, and you couldn't do live09:33 - 09:40Rochelle Moulton: events. Did you pivot at all, or did you just find the other parts of your business picked up, or was that when you were working on the last book?09:41 - 10:08David C. Baker: Yeah. So I did some speaking still, but it was all virtual, and I hated every minute of it, but I still did some of that. I needed to do it for, well, I had a lot of time and it helped just to keep the brand out there, so to speak. And all the live events stopped as you anticipate. I had written a book and it was all ready to go. It was a secret trade craft book, but I didn't feel like it was the right time to release it. So it just sat there for a couple10:08 - 10:46David C. Baker: of years. What I did was, well, after panicking for 6 weeks, is just do tons of free webinars to help the industry. I had the time, I like, I need a platform, I need people in an audience, I need to force myself to think through things. And I wanted to help the marketplace. And so I did that. I think I did 11 webinars, and there were more than 1, 000 people at many of them. I didn't realize at the time that that was my alternative lead generation plan. It really surprised me completely, but so many people10:46 - 11:19David C. Baker: came back and worked with me afterwards, and the books were still selling really well, that it was fine. Like, I think I dropped 30% that year, but it was fine. So, I just pivoted. But what really changed had nothing to do with events. It was about the advisory side, because I was traveling to a different country every week doing an in-person consultation and that stopped. And I thought, well, maybe this is the end, you know? I didn't know. This is when we're still wiping off UPS packages, for God's sake. We really had no idea what was11:19 - 11:34David C. Baker: going on, right? And I decided to reinvent the whole process and make it virtual. And the marketplace responded really well. In fact, it's, so I don't travel at all anymore for consulting, I do for speaking, but not for consulting.11:34 - 11:37Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, it makes a huge difference being off a plane.11:37 - 11:48David C. Baker: Oh, I feel so much healthier too. It's like, you know, when you're on a plane or if you have little kids around, it's like you're licking a Petri dish all day. And now I feel so much healthier too without traveling.11:49 - 11:54Rochelle Moulton: Yes. When I got off that treadmill, my life changed pretty much overnight.11:54 - 11:55David C. Baker: Yeah.11:55 - 12:07Rochelle Moulton: So, David, like logistically, how do you handle doing multiple live events? Like I was looking at your schedule in 2024, and it looks like you did 1 live event a month from February through April,12:07 - 12:07David C. Baker: and12:07 - 12:15Rochelle Moulton: you mentioned the pop-up. And then, of course, you've got your big multi-day MYOB event in October. Like, how do you juggle all that?12:15 - 12:45David C. Baker: Yeah, and we just today went live with an M&A event, succession valuation event in December. So I had a partner in doing MYOB, that's our big event, that stands for Mind Your Own Business. We had hundreds and hundreds of people come every year. And My partner did all the logistics for that. And then they went away, they were purchased, and so the event just stopped. And I decided to do something else, and I did it with Blair. It was called the New Business Summit. We would have about 120 to 150 people at each event. And that12:45 - 13:20David C. Baker: was pretty easy to do, partly because of how I think about events. They're much easier to organize. Now, my son, we hold the events at the brewery that he's a partner of, so that makes it a little bit easier. And then we actually hire an event planner who does this in the background. We pay her thousands of dollars to do this. And it's very smooth, actually. And we kind of learn from each 1. So we have extensive surveying afterward, like what worked, what didn't work. Like a couple years ago, it was pretty clear that our food13:20 - 13:49David C. Baker: service wasn't as good, so we fixed that. Coffee service wasn't fast enough, we fixed that. And then we pay lots of attention to what the attendees want. In fact, at some point, I want to talk about the whole speaker selection thing. But that's how we do it. Now, if Jonathan wasn't there to manage these things, because all I do is I do the programming. So I invite all the speakers, and I sort of filter all that. He does all the rest. If he weren't on scene, then I would go back to doing some smaller events. And13:49 - 13:56David C. Baker: for those, I would just do 30, 40 people at a time. And I can explain more detail how that works, but it wasn't complicated at all.13:57 - 14:14Rochelle Moulton: Well, it's interesting because, you know, it was there last year and Jonathan was like the guy with 47 hands. He literally was constantly in motion. And that also explains, so a lot of the helpers, the kind of worker bees who were fabulous, so those were all your event planner people.14:14 - 14:46David C. Baker: We had 1 event planner. It was a lady that was sitting at the table, the younger woman, and then we had 4 other people who were motorcycle riding friends, neighborhood friends, none of them are professional in this space. They're just good people with great attitudes. They're just people we hired, Eddie and Christine and so....

How can you work less and make more than you are right now? There is a glide path if you’re willing to experiment insists Jonathan Stark, author of Hourly Billing Is Nuts. Yes, the dynamic Business of Authority duo is baaaaaaaaack for an episode:Two experiments to try if you’re currently billing by the hour and want to explore alternatives.How to start thinking about value vs. time, especially when you hit the maximum number of hours you are able—or want—to work.What options to consider to ratchet up your revenue past the low 6 figures—and how to think about the audience or transformations you’ll need to deliver to get there.Why being a “ruthless” minimalist can keep your business easy to run and avoid time sucks.Exploring—and testing—ways to use AI right now in your expertise business.LINKSJonathan Stark Website | LinkedInRochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramBIOJonathan Stark is a former software developer who is on a mission to rid the world of hourly billing. He is the author of Hourly Billing Is Nuts, the host of Ditching Hourly, and writes a daily newsletter on pricing for independent professionals.BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLERESOURCES FOR SOLOISTSJoin the Soloist email list: helping thousands of Soloist Consultants smash through their revenue plateau.Soloist Events: in-person events for Soloists to gather and learn.The Soloist Women community: a place to connect with like-minded women (and join a channel dedicated to your revenue level).The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.TRANSCRIPT00:00 - 00:29Jonathan Stark: As you're growing your audience and you've got just more people aware of what you're doing, you can deliver smaller bits of value at a lower price, but a way lower cost. If you've got enough of an audience, then that completely support you. The classic example is like if you have a bestselling book. So if somebody goes to Amazon, they buy the book, they read the book, you're not involved. The author doesn't even know about you. And if you sell enough of them, if the audience is big enough, you can live like a king off of that.00:29 - 00:37Jonathan Stark: It's a great example of the kind of thing where you're delivering a little bit of value for 20 bucks to 10 million people and it's like, oh, that's pretty cool00:42 - 00:55Rochelle Moulton: Hello hello Welcome to this soloist life podcast where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton, and today we have a special surprise guest, my buddy Jonathan Stark.00:56 - 00:58Jonathan Stark: Hello. It's great to be back.00:59 - 01:02Rochelle Moulton: Awesome. And I'm in charge of the controls, which is like super fun.01:02 - 01:02Jonathan Stark: No01:02 - 01:28Rochelle Moulton: pressure. So, let me do an intro so people who don't know who you are will know. And Jonathan is a former software developer who's on a mission to rid the world of hourly billing. He is the author of Hourly Billing is Nuts, the host of Ditching Hourly, and writes a daily newsletter on pricing for independent professionals. He is also a former co-host with moi of the Business of Authority. So, Jonathan, welcome.01:28 - 01:31Jonathan Stark: Great to be here. Thanks for having me.01:31 - 01:44Rochelle Moulton: I just had somebody tell me yesterday and then somebody else this morning how much they missed TBOA and I had to bite my tongue not to tell them we were recording this episode today.01:45 - 01:47Jonathan Stark: Yeah, it's like smartless. You have to reveal01:47 - 01:50Rochelle Moulton: How fun to have the duo back in action, right?01:50 - 01:53Jonathan Stark: Yeah, yeah, it's great. It feels like riding a bike already. I know.01:55 - 02:08Rochelle Moulton: Well, listen, I wanted to have you on the show. You are actually the last guest of season 2 before we take a summer break. So we can talk about making more and working less, which is kind of your theme. And it seems kind of like a good summer topic.02:09 - 02:13Jonathan Stark: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Working way less and you're taking a break, which is smart.02:13 - 02:26Rochelle Moulton: Exactly. Well, so first, Catch us up on what you've been doing since we wrapped TBOA in April. Like, are you simmering on another podcast, working on new products? Like, what are you doing with all that extra time you have back?02:26 - 03:02Jonathan Stark: Yeah, I've been experimenting with lots of different things, purposely trying to keep myself busy and spending maximum time in my sort of genius zone doing fun stuff because it's sort of a response to 2023 which was kind of boring work wise. I had things really automated and I was subconsciously optimizing to work as little as possible. I got down too far and ended up spending most of my time doing stuff that I think at, which doesn't make me feel that great. So this year I was consciously planning to experiment with more fun stuff, get a little03:02 - 03:17Jonathan Stark: bit busier, but in that time, purposely spend doing things, a lot of writing, but also launching things and creating new offerings and all different stuff. So I have a lot of irons in the fire right now and it's been exactly as hoped and extremely fun.03:18 - 03:23Rochelle Moulton: Well, I saw you on LinkedIn and my eyes like bugged out of my head because I know you hated going there.03:23 - 04:04Jonathan Stark: Yeah, I've been anti-social media for probably 8 years. I've been basically off of social media. The only thing I did was syndicate my daily email posts on a dozen platforms, but I didn't engage. I didn't really do anything there, and I have the results to show for it, which I would get just no engagement whatsoever on any of those automated posts. I'd be like if I got 80 impressions on a LinkedIn post that was just like a title and a link to my blog, the blog version of my email list. So that wasn't doing anything. But04:04 - 04:32Jonathan Stark: so 1 of the things I did, it was after we decided to shutter TVA away. I was like, my mailing list has been hovering around 10,000 for a long time. Partially because I'm an aggressive pruner. I like to have my open rate around 50%, so I prune people that haven't been opening a lot. But it was more than that. I just felt like I was talking to the same group of people, which is great, but I wanted to get the message to rid the world of hourly billing. I want that mission to grow, So I wanted04:32 - 05:04Jonathan Stark: to get more people on the list. I had experimented with a bunch of different things like YouTube and other podcasts and guesting on other podcasts. I was like, I'm seeing people getting really good results on LinkedIn. It's the least offensive platform to me. And so I took it, I don't know how long it's been, maybe 2 months ago, I started to take it really seriously. I researched 2 or 3 different people that were having, you can see they have tons of followers, you can see they get tons of engagement. I'm like, well, if I believe that05:04 - 05:37Jonathan Stark: that translates into more people on the mailing list and more people joining me on the mission, if I believe that, then okay, let's just posit that that's true, that those are good leading indicators for my ultimate goal. How do I take this seriously and really do it right or at least effectively? And holy mackerel, it really works. When you actually engage with people, imagine social media be social. LinkedIn wants their users to behave a certain way and that's no surprise it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what they want. They want you engaging in05:37 - 05:55Jonathan Stark: sharing good content and attracting more people to their platform. They don't want you linking off of the platform. They want you engaging in other people's comments. So, you know, basically I spend maybe half an hour to 45 minutes, Monday through Friday, chatting with people who care about whatever I posted, which turns out to be pretty fun.05:58 - 06:04Rochelle Moulton: Have you seen it translate into email subscribers or is it too soon to tell? What do you think?06:04 - 06:31Jonathan Stark: It definitely has. So I didn't have any tracking on my website on the signup form prior to doing this experiment. So I don't have like web traffic numbers, but the idea is to transition people from who are meeting me for the first time on LinkedIn, transition them to the website where they can sign up for the mailing list. And my traffic from LinkedIn, I installed some tracking software. It actually, Paul Jarvis's application Fathom,06:31 - 06:31Rochelle Moulton: we had him06:31 - 07:06Jonathan Stark: on TVA years ago. And I can clearly see that my traffic from LinkedIn is increasing, not like dramatically, but it's definitely increasing. So we'll see, and my subscribers have started to climb again on my mailing list. So we'll see if it's worth the squeeze, so to speak. But it is pretty fun and it doesn't take that much time. So I'm writing the daily anyway, so it's it feels it's a little bit different writing for LinkedIn than for my list because it's for strangers and not preaching to the converted. Yeah, it's been fun as long as as07:06 - 07:08Jonathan Stark: long as it continues to stay fun. I'll keep doing it.07:08 - 07:10Rochelle Moulton: Look at you being social. I'm so proud.07:13 - 07:19Jonathan Stark: I've been meeting a lot of really good. I mean, we met on social media. I've been meeting a lot of really cool people. It's really cool.07:19 - 07:30Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, and I think LinkedIn has a lot of really cool people. It doesn't have as much of the sort of detrius that you see on some of the other ones for people in the expertise space.07:30 - 07:32Jonathan Stark: Yeah, we can leave those unnamed.07:34 - 08:07Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, we'll leave that 1 there. So let's talk about this whole idea of working less and making more. There's a lot of advice out there about this from myself included. So maybe we can start with how experts tend to evolve. So an expert of some sort like a software developer or a consultant goes out on their own and they start doing project work. They probably start by billing hourly. So if someone is in the spot right now early in their business evolution, what can they experiment with to increase their revenue without working more?08:07 - 08:14Jonathan Stark: I mean, the main thing is, assuming you're not going to hire, which is something that I've never going to do, I've sworn that off.08:14 - 08:16Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, let's assume they're solos. Yeah, exactly.08:17 - 08:51Jonathan Stark: Right. This is the show for that. So then you've only got so much inventory to sell. You've got however many hours a week you want to work and your hourly rate for your industry probably has a reasonable maximum that anybody would ever be willing to consider. And it's very easy for people who say, oh, you're a PHP developer and you're $300 an hour. Well, I can easily find a PHP developer that's $150 an hour or $50 an hour or $15 an hour. So it's a terrible way to position yourself in the marketplace because it makes it08:51 - 09:21Jonathan Stark: really easy for price buyers to put downward pressure on your fees. And at some point you run out of hours to sell and if you're not gonna hire, that's that. So what do you do instead? And the answer is you got to break the dependence on trading time for money and To experiment with that. I would probably start to offer usually it starts with a product I service because that's the easiest thing to get your head around if you're used to billing by the hour. And the easiest kind is just a paid consultation, some kind of09:21 - 09:49Jonathan Stark: paid call where someone can kind of pick your brain about your area of expertise. And you know, maybe it's got a, The trick with these is that it kind of seems like an hourly rate because in order to schedule it you have to put something in the calendar that's some duration. But it's really not tied to that. It's tied to the clarity that you can give them on the call. So maybe you schedule it for 45 minutes. The way I do it is I think right now they're 45 minutes, but I tell people to block out09:49 - 10:16Jonathan Stark: extra time after that because we could go long. So I kind of skew toward the short end of the appointment, but then I tell them to make sure you don't have something after it because we might really be jamming and want to keep going. So I make it clear that it's not really about the time. It's more about the outcome that they want, which is almost always clarity about what to do next in some situation that they're stuck in. So for a software developer, it could be something like, I don't know, somebody's got some outrageous Amazon10:16 - 10:50Jonathan Stark: Web Services bill, and you're really good at DevOps or doing something on cost control on AWS, or even just reading the dashboard. And you could have something like, for 500 bucks, you can share your screen, log into your account, and I'll go through your dashboard with you, explain how it works, explain what to look for, any potential opportunities for serious cost cutting. And if I can't give you some tips that will lower your bill by at least $500 a month, I'll give you your money back. So that's really not tied to the hour. That's more tied10:50 - 11:11Jonathan Stark: to the outcome and the clarity around how they could get that desirable outcome. So I'll probably start there. Productized service, just say, if you want to, I could go down maybe a few more examples of productized services that I'm aware of, but that's the basic concept where it's, you're packaging up your expertise and you're selling an outcome. It's not about the 45 minutes or however long it takes. It has nothing to do11:11 - 11:26Rochelle Moulton: with that. You just talk about 1 more. So pick 1 that's a little bit higher up the food chain, but not too high. Maybe, you know, like an assessment thing or some kind of a front end for something that you normally do a full Monte on.11:26 - 12:02Jonathan Stark: Good place to step up the next level from a kind of ad hoc consultation call would be some kind of a roadmap. And for software developers, that probably looks like a non-technical person who's got an idea for a SaaS or some kind of app, an iOS app. Could be anything, could be a website, got an idea for this thing, but they're non-technical and they don't even know if it's feasible. Like is this technology even, is there technology that exists that would even make this idea possible? And if so, how much would it cost? Like what would12:02 - 12:38Jonathan Stark: be involved? What would be the ongoing expenses? What would be the upfront expenses? And if you're attracting people who are like this, like I had 1 person who was focused on senior level salespeople from enterprise SaaS businesses who are constantly meeting with clients that are buying enterprise B2B software and identified, it wasn't uncommon for these types of people to identify gaps in the market that they kind of were like, well, maybe I'll just fill this gap but I don't know anything about software So they would call my guy and he would start them off with a12:38 - 13:06Jonathan Stark: blueprint and the promise was I'll get the idea out of your head down onto paper in a way that to determine the feasibility What the upfront costs would probably be what the ongoing costs would probably be a list of technologies that would probably be involved, how risky each 1 is or isn't. Then at the end of that, they would have something that they could bring to perhaps a lower cost developer or they could take it to investors to perhaps get angel round of funding to get it done, depending on if they needed the money or wanted13:06 - 13:25Jonathan Stark: to bootstrap. And then my guy would, you know, if they wanted to, then my guy would say, well, if you want me to build the MVP, I'm happy to do it, but I'll probably be the most expensive option. You should shop around if you want. And of course there was like, no, I'll go with you. That sounds great. Let me just get the money. So a roadmap is a natural next rung up in the product ladder for someone like that.13:26 - 13:53Rochelle Moulton: Oh, good. I think that gives people who are still in the early stages some ideas of what to do next. But then we have this sort of next category, and you and I, we've talked about this together so many times, but we know what happens when experts that are mostly billing directly for their time, and that can include retainers too, hit roughly 150,000 or so somewhere in that vicinity. Talk us through what happens and how they can peel themselves off when they hit that wall.13:54 - 13:54Jonathan Stark: Peel themselves off13:54 - 13:56Rochelle Moulton: the wall. I mean, that's what it13:56 - 14:23Jonathan Stark: feels like. You end up like 5, 10 years in, maybe you've got a couple of little kids now, and you realize you're working more than ever and you haven't increased your income in years, like 234 years and you're like, huh. You start to see like, you know, the wall starts to look like, wow, how am I ever going to work less? You know, all of a sudden you've got these other things you want to spend your time on during the day, and you're getting better and better at what you do. You're finishing it faster and faster14:23 - 14:40Jonathan Stark: at a higher level quality. Maybe you raise your rates, but it doesn't compensate, and you're just treading water. When you get to that point, that's when I get a lot of people who come to me and they're just desperate. They're like, I don't know what to do. There's no...