The Soloist Life

Podcasting is a proven way to increase your authority, impact and revenue—but how can you produce a podcast that consistently achieves your goals? Lauren Popish, founder of The Wave (podcast editing for women, by women), shows how to clear the obstacles keeping you from starting—or continuing to grow—a purposeful podcast.Lauren shares her story and some frank advice:The two questions that you want to answer before recording a single episode (and use as a touchstone as you grow your ‘cast).How to think about hard costs vs. the value of your time when outsourcing elements of your podcast production.What to look for when outsourcing your podcast production—and when to choose a solo or an agency.What to tell yourself if the sound of your own voice is keeping you from podcasting (start at timestamp 43:56 for the best advice I've ever heard on this).Why purposeful podcasting means playing the long game.LINKSLauren Popish Website | Launch Checklist | LinkedIn | InstagramRochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramBIOLauren Popish is the founder of The Wave Podcasting. She started podcasting in 2017 after a public speaking blunder that sparked a speaking fear and almost ended her career. She found podcasting to be a safe place to practice speaking and wanted to share it with other women struggling to tell their stories.The Wave launched The Wave Editing, the first podcast editing service for women by women in 2021. The Wave Editing pairs female audio engineers with female podcasters so they can grow their shows by outsourcing the tedious tasks that prevent many podcast hosts from building their audience. Since then, The Wave has served hundreds of women through affordable editing services, educational resources, and digital community.BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLERESOURCES FOR SOLOISTSThe Soloist Women Mastermind (Apply January 2024) A structured eight-month mastermind with an intentionally small group of hand-picked women soloists grappling with—and solving—the same kinds of challenges. 10 Ways To Grow Revenue As A Soloist (Without Working More Hours): most of us have been conditioned to work more when we want to grow revenue—but what if we just worked differently?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 - 00:34Lauren Popish: How much is your time worth, truly from like a dollar standpoint? What would it cost you to sacrifice 1 hour of your day doing something like editing your podcast? If you think you can get more value from editing it yourself, then you would if you were to go use your time to do something else like do an hour of coaching services or even spend your time marketing your podcast, increasing your audience. If you think that your time is better spent editing, then it'll be a better value for you than hiring someone.00:38 - 01:13Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to Soloist Women, where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton, and today I'm here with Lauren Poppish, the founder of The Wave Podcasting. And she launched the first podcast editing service for women by women in 2021. She pairs female audio engineers with female podcasters so they can grow their shows by outsourcing the tedious tasks that prevent many podcast hosts from building their audience. Lauren, welcome. Thank you01:13 - 01:18Lauren Popish: so much for having me. It's such a treat to be on the side of the microphone, on the side of the podcast.01:19 - 01:39Rochelle Moulton: Absolutely. Well, I'm so excited to have you on the show. And not only because I'm a happy user of your podcast editing services, I want to put that right up front. But I also Share your view that podcasting is a great way to get over the fear that many of us have about using our voices and being heard.01:39 - 02:15Lauren Popish: I'm so happy to hear you say that because I think it's 1 of the undersold advantages of starting a podcast is really treating speaking like a muscle, which it is, and like any skill, any skill that we're trying to build, you have to do it a little bit. And all of us, I think, can use more practice in not just using our voices in the most literal sense, but using it for getting a message across, selling ourselves, selling our companies, our missions. And podcasting is a great way to build the practice and build up that skill02:15 - 02:32Lauren Popish: of using your voice. It certainly has helped me overcome what was some pretty debilitating public speaking fear at 1 time and has since truly not just helped build individual confidence, but really has helped build my brand for my business. Well, I'm so02:32 - 02:36Rochelle Moulton: glad you brought that up because that was actually where I wanted to start this.02:36 - 02:37Lauren Popish: Oh good.02:37 - 02:50Rochelle Moulton: Because if I understand rightly, you started podcasting in 2017 after what you called a public speaking blunder that almost ended your career. So I'd really love to hear, like, how did that go down?02:50 - 03:29Lauren Popish: Yeah, I was on a sales team for a tech startup that had just gone through an acquisition. And my role at that time was kind of going on a road show of, I believe it was 22 different cities over 4 weeks to sell our new company on these products that this company had just acquired and train them up, show them how to use it. And so I was flying around and doing that kind of typical TV version of what a salesperson looks like. I was flying into 1 city during 1 day, flying out to the next.03:29 - 04:10Lauren Popish: I was racking up the points on my credit card. And on the very last day of the tour, so this is literally the last city of that 22 city tour, I was in Charleston and I showed up for a presentation I'd given at that 0, I want to say hundreds of times, either virtually or in person, and showed up like I usually do. Felt a little tired maybe from travel but nothing out of the usual. I showed up to this presentation. I started in on my typical lines and about midway through, I just couldn't catch my04:10 - 04:47Lauren Popish: breath. I was a little dehydrated. I was speaking too fast And I hyperventilated to the point where I had to actually leave the room. I was in the middle of this presentation. I have a complete meltdown. I can't get any words out. I can't speak. I kind of feign a coughing fit and I was like, I'll be right back. And I walked out and speaking at that time was 1 of my best skills. It was something that, I mean, I was in a sales role. It was how I defined myself as someone who is a very04:47 - 05:09Lauren Popish: confident speaker. And it was my livelihood at the time. I walked out and the coordinator, she came over and she goes, Oh, let me grab you a glass of water. Let's head back in there. And I was like, I'm so sorry. I don't, I don't think I can do this. I don't think I can go back in." And she was like, what are you talking about? Like she truly couldn't even understand that I was in a moment of full blown panic attack.05:09 - 05:10Rochelle Moulton: Yeah.05:10 - 05:45Lauren Popish: And so I went back in, I somehow stumbled through that presentation. But that incident sparked a fear so robust. I mean, I have to say that at the time I was in the early incubation stages of having mono, I had just worn myself truly into the ground from all of this work. So my health was failing a little bit. And so I was out of commission for about a month after that, just being so sick. But when I got back, the fear had come to stay. I mean, I every single, it didn't matter if it was05:45 - 06:16Lauren Popish: a virtual call, There was a time where I was so afraid of what might happen to me. I just didn't, I couldn't trust my body. I couldn't trust my voice. I didn't understand why this had happened when in the past I had never even thought about speaking and all of a sudden I could be standing up there and my voice just wouldn't work anymore. Like I couldn't just speak anymore. And so I could barely be in a conference room just having a one-on-one meeting with a colleague who I knew well. I mean, that's how paralyzed with06:16 - 06:49Lauren Popish: fear I was about my own voice and my ability to speak and trusting myself that way. And so I was going through just such anxiety. I had to have someone like a sit in the room with me as I was doing all my sales calls. I was just so afraid that something would happen and I'd have to leave and someone else would have to jump in. And I finally called my boss 1 Sunday as I was in true dread of showing up to start my workday that Monday. And I just said, I can't do it anymore.06:49 - 07:22Lauren Popish: And I don't know if there's a role here for me. I don't know what that means for my career at this company. All I know is that I can't do this job anymore. And luckily, I worked at a company that was just extremely human people centric. And my boss kind of sat me down and said, hey, we're going to find something that works for you. And I moved into a product role that ultimately fit like a glove. It fit me a lot better and I had a long career with this company. It was the company that07:22 - 07:44Lauren Popish: I was at until I decided to break out on my own with the wave. And that's really fortunate. But had that not been the case, I would have had to just kind of leave and figure out how to have a career and how to keep supporting myself because I was just so debilitated with fear about speaking at that time.07:45 - 08:07Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. So what's fascinating to me then, I mean, because that story has so many elements. I mean, I'm 22 cities in who knows how many days. I mean, I'm not surprised you'd get mono or be sick or that your voice would just suddenly disappear. But what made you then decide that you could make a business out of podcasting? Right? Like the biggest fear.08:08 - 08:50Lauren Popish: Yeah, it wasn't overnight. It took a long time to kind of come to that decision. I basically immediately started a pretty robust therapy, immersion therapy. I joined Toastmasters immediately. I knew that I needed to get back to, and I will likely never ever get back to that level of carefree confidence that I had at 1 time about speaking. I now manage my fear and anxiety around speaking, but it's not gone. So I'll probably never get back to that. But I knew I needed to get to a functional state where I could hold down a job, where08:50 - 09:22Lauren Popish: I could come and sit in a conference room with other people and not be so afraid that I was going to have some kind of bodily mishap. And so I started that process. And at that time I was actually, I've kind of always had the entrepreneurial fire and maybe other folks who listen to your show can relate to this fact that I've worked in, for companies and in corporate environments for a long time, but I've always had that little burning fire under me that just says, I want to do it on my own. I want to09:22 - 09:52Lauren Popish: do something on my own. And so I was always a side hustle queen. I was, I always had something in the wings. And at the time that this was all happening, I was actually had some funding for a travel app that I was working on. It was kind of Instagramable travel app stuff. And as I was going through this experience, this really kind of life changing experience, I just kind of looked at my work that I had built around this travel app and said, who the heck cares about this? I mean, this is not, this isn't09:53 - 10:18Lauren Popish: important. This isn't meaningful. And on my worst days, when I get up, this is actually not gonna, I'm not gonna come to this and feel fulfilled by this. And so I really had, in addition to a pretty serious crisis around speaking, I also had a bit of an existential crisis where I was like, if you're going to start a business and you're going to put all your... Because we know it's not easy, we know it takes a lot of10:18 - 10:18Rochelle Moulton: time, and We know it takes a lot10:18 - 10:54Lauren Popish: of time. And we know it takes a lot out of us. If I'm going to pursue something, it's probably got to be so important and so purposeful and something that on my worst day, I'm still willing to get up and work on that I really need to change. I need to think about what that would be. And so I sat down, I said, what is the most important thing to me right now? And I just said, well, gosh, the biggest thing I'm struggling with right now is just debilitating public speaking fair. And even at that time,10:54 - 11:24Lauren Popish: I said, Lauren, that's too close to home. It's actually too close. There's no way I could attempt to build something around that. But as time went on, you're really called to the things that you're trying to overcome. And that as you're struggling with these challenges, all of a sudden I had all this empathy for all these women and these people around me who I had never experienced public speaking fear until recently. But all of a sudden, I started seeing everybody in a different light. I started seeing my sister who's always been kind of behind the scenes.11:24 - 11:59Lauren Popish: And I did theater in school and she was more of an athlete. She didn't like the limelight. And so I'm starting to see her in a new light, I'm starting to empathize, I'm starting to look at my colleagues who also don't want to get up in the middle of the meeting and raise their hand. And all of a sudden, I just started seeing community that hadn't been there before, because it wasn't a community that I identified with or I was a part of. Once that group started showing itself, I really started feeling called to support that11:59 - 12:41Lauren Popish: community. With all the tools I was trying, the Toastmasters and the therapy and the mindfulness practices and then podcasting, I really saw it as 1 of my tools for curing or trying to heal this moment in time for me, I really felt like I needed to share it. I just felt called to bring this tool to my community because I didn't really think people might be aware of how good and confidence building podcasting was if you were someone who didn't feel really comfortable in your own voice, who didn't feel a certain amount of confidence about speaking12:41 - 12:50Lauren Popish: out. I just knew that I had to be spending my time doing something that would support the people that I now felt close to.12:50 - 13:05Rochelle Moulton: Well, it's a little bit like, as I'm listening to you, like your eyes were opened. Oh, other people are afraid of public speaking. I mean, I think when they just surveyed, the only thing people fear more than death is public speaking. Exactly. Yeah. So I13:05 - 13:43Lauren Popish: mean, it's just, it's fascinating because you had no idea until you were thrust into that situation and experienced that fear, how alone you were not. Right? Yes, yes. And what I didn't realize until I did a little bit of research is that is true that the majority of people, I think it's something like I used to have this number memorized, but you know, it's like in the seventies, high 70% of individuals, all people fear public speaking. But the majority of that identify as female, 44% of that group. And so why is that? That seems weird, right?13:43 - 14:19Lauren Popish: Oh, no, that seems totally obvious to me. Exactly. Well, it does, of course, because we were like, well, we're already kind of fearful to speak up, but for other reasons that are related to our position in the world and in society, not to get too far down my feminist path that I can, that's a soapbox I can easily step up onto, but I won't. Just to say that I really just felt like there's this whole community of people and especially a sub community within those individuals who have some public speaking anxiety. You know, most of us14:19 - 14:24Lauren Popish: are women. Why is that? And what can we do to really support each other in that state?14:25 - 14:57Rochelle Moulton: It isn't easy. And not just for women, for people of color, for any marginalized community, because most of us are socialized to be quiet, to not raise our voices or we've tried to do it and we haven't been heard. So after a while we stop. Exactly. Yeah, we could go on about that all day, believe me. But that's again, I just want to reiterate and that is what I love about podcasting even in my own case I would not call myself shy by any stretch of the imagination but I did find it difficult when I first14:57 - 15:28Rochelle Moulton: started podcasting to just really say what was on my mind and feel like that was okay, that it would be valuable and that if somebody didn't like it, that would be okay too. Right. It just takes a little while, but when you keep doing it to your point, it's like a muscle. Exactly. And it just keeps getting stronger and stronger. So I wanted to talk a little bit about the way you've organized your business. Now, you're not a soloist, right? You've assembled a team of people to work with you. And I have to say in the15:28 - 16:00Rochelle Moulton: 6 months or so that I've...

Do you cringe at the thought of tax season, wondering what ugly surprises lie in store for you? As fractional CFO to growth-minded business owners (and top podcaster) Shannon Weinstein says “You can’t hot glue and duct tape your numbers forever.”Shannon dives deep into how to set yourself up for a smooth tax season, no matter your business stage:Why collecting good data is an excellent place to start (and what to do if you’ve been avoiding your numbers).How one small mid-year ask of your CPA can save you a world of hurt at tax time.Deciding which parts of your business financial life to handle yourself vs. outsource (hint: If it’s not in your genius zone…)How to start turning your data into smart decisions that align with where you most want to take your business.Plus, a bonus guide to the types of financial pros serving expertise businesses and sample interview questions to ensure they’re a fit.LINKSShannon Weinstein Website | Guide | InstagramRochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramBIOShannon is a fractional CFO for growth-minded business owners, a CPA and a teacher at heart. Her real-talk and relatable examples simplify the financial side of business so business owners like you can stop stressing and start scaling. She is the host of the IRS's least favorite podcast, Keep What You Earn, where she releases daily episodes. She is also a frequent speaker in business mentorship communities and masterminds.​BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLERESOURCES FOR SOLOISTSThe Soloist Women Mastermind (Apply January 2024) A structured eight-month mastermind with an intentionally small group of hand-picked women soloists grappling with—and solving—the same kinds of challenges. 10 Ways To Grow Revenue As A Soloist (Without Working More Hours): most of us have been conditioned to work more when we want to grow revenue—but what if we just worked differently?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 - 00:20Shannon Weinstein: A stress-free tax season is the byproduct of planning and looking at the numbers all year to the point where it's not a surprise. And I didn't realize this until I started my own practice that the tax bill was 25% of the problem. The surprise aspect of the surprise tax bill was 75% of the problem.00:25 - 00:59Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to Soloist   Women, where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton. And today, I'm here with Shannon Weinstein, Fractional CFO for Growth-Minded Business Owners, a CPA and host of the IRS's least favorite podcast, Keep What You Earn, And kudos to her. She's landed her podcast in the top 1 and a half percent of all podcasts, which is no small feat. And she aims to bust the myth that all accountants are boring. So Shannon, I've set you up now. Welcome.01:00 - 01:03Shannon Weinstein: Thank you. And expectations have been set. I hope I live up to it.01:03 - 01:38Rochelle Moulton: Oh, I know you will. So 1 of the reasons I was so happy to have you on the show is an episode from your podcast where you describe tax season as a pit of despair for some people. And true confessions, I've been down that pit myself once or twice in the course of my business. So I'd love to have you spare our listeners from making any visits there. But I'm also fascinated with how you've built your business so far and the path that you're walking to do that. So let's just start first with your business. And01:38 - 01:47Rochelle Moulton: I think McDonald's deserves a shout out since it looks like both you and I had our first management jobs there at the ripe old age of 17. So high 5.01:47 - 02:00Shannon Weinstein: Yes, I was a baby at 14. Like the day I turned 14, my dad was like, get a work permit, make your own money. And I was cashier and cleaning the bathrooms, like internally grateful for that experience 100%.02:00 - 02:07Rochelle Moulton: Well, I'm impressed because the state I lived in, we couldn't work until 16. So I didn't start till 16. You were good.02:07 - 02:21Shannon Weinstein: Yeah, they wouldn't let us touch the fries until then. And I couldn't work past like 7pm. But trust me, my dad squeezed out with all the work he could out of me. He's like, do the minimum that you can do. And it was just great experience.02:21 - 02:33Rochelle Moulton: I second that awesome McDonald's experience. So what made you leave, you were in the big 4 and corporate America, what made you leave that kind of safe, secure place and go out on your own.02:34 - 02:59Shannon Weinstein: It's so funny, Rachelle, that you bring it up as like a safe, secure place, because it feels that way when you're in it, because there's security in certainty, in like, I'm gonna get a paycheck that I can kind of coast along, I can fall into a routine, I don't have to think too hard. I can kind of show up and do the work and go home. And I just kind of got restless because I think there are some of us who, they just want something more. They know they're meant for more than the paycheck and the03:00 - 03:26Shannon Weinstein: cubicle and that type of lifestyle. And I think COVID really accelerated that because I was working from home in my corporate job. I had started building my business on the side, but I really took it seriously when we went remote because I realized that, you know, this is how it's supposed to be. We're supposed to be able to integrate work and life. Like we shouldn't have to be chained to a desk for 8, 9 hours a day. And then you get to go home. It's not like school used to be or anything. I go, you can03:26 - 03:50Shannon Weinstein: learn anywhere. You can work anywhere. We can be productive anywhere. I said, I'm so much more productive working from home when I can set certain work hours and I can break for the middle of the day to go grocery shopping or do laundry. Then I don't get stressed out about all the stuff I have to do when I get home and I'm not burning myself out. So long story short, I really wanted that freedom of being able to manage my time effectively the way I wanted to.03:51 - 03:57Rochelle Moulton: Love that. So now you're not a soloist as I understand it. You've assembled a team of folks to work with you. Is that right?03:58 - 04:12Shannon Weinstein: Yeah, I'm still the primary CFO for all the clients, but we assembled a fantastic team of folks who support me in the marketing and podcast areas, not to mention bookkeeping and other roles as well that will help me from an admin perspective too.04:12 - 04:24Rochelle Moulton: So with your business, is your plan to scale significantly? I heard something on a podcast that made me think maybe that was the case. Or do you have a sweet spot that you're either in already or aiming for?04:25 - 04:58Shannon Weinstein: So when it comes to scaling, I define scaling as increasing the output without, you know, basically, I can't multiply myself. Scaling would include really being able to train up and to build other Shannon's. I've just kind of come down to the process of I want to build the recipes. I don't want to open more restaurants. Let me say it this way that I don't want to manage 10 chilies, but I would love to cook up the recipe that a bunch of different restaurants then buy from me. So I would rather license my methods, my systems, my04:58 - 05:24Shannon Weinstein: operations, everything I've learned, I want to package it for other accountants so they can start their own journey and they can pick their own clients. Because I realized that even my clients don't want to be commoditized. Like I built a business with intention that my clients aren't a commodity that can be bought and sold their relationships. So if I were to leave my business and to sell it, I'm like, that's not fair. My client roster, they picked me, you know, they didn't pick whoever bought me. So I really take care of that. And I look at05:24 - 05:41Shannon Weinstein: that as relationships. And I say, you know what, leave it to the other accountant to build their own relationships. But here's all the infrastructure, the admin, the operations, and here's how to run everything I've done and a massive shortcut to doing it, which I think is valuable. Plus, it can be sold multiple times. So I figure that's the route I'm probably going to take.05:41 - 06:15Rochelle Moulton: You know, what's so fascinating about that is I take back what I said that you're not a soloist. I mean, what you just described is exactly what a lot of soloists in my community in any way look for. I mean, they're looking for ways to license their intellectual property to leverage it in different ways. So good on you. Good on you. Okay. So before we dive into avoiding the pit of despair that can be tax time, am I safe in assuming that if you hit the pit, right, of despair, that it's not just about taxes. It06:15 - 06:21Rochelle Moulton: feels like it's a sign that something is going off the rails in your business. Is that true or no?06:21 - 06:49Shannon Weinstein: Maybe. So I look at tax season as kind of like the ultimate Weight Watchers weigh in. If you're from my generation, we're like that was the thing. It's kind of like when you come out of the holidays, you put your jeans on and you're like, oh no, I got to jump up and down and wiggle on the bed a little bit to get into these. And then that's when you realize something's wrong. So I kind of feel like When you put the jeans on and they don't fit, it's not the first sign you were heading in06:49 - 07:14Shannon Weinstein: direction, but it's the first 1 you can really feel. So it's starting to manifest the symptoms of lack of responsibility and ownership over your numbers, and it just starts showing up in the way of taxis and stress. It's just like when you don't fit in the jeans. In reality, there were lots of things that compounded over time that contributed to that feeling that could have been avoided. But you find yourself there because you ignored some of those other signs. That's how I would view it.07:15 - 07:30Rochelle Moulton: Well, maybe let's take the opposite approach. What does a mostly pain-free tax time experience look and feel like from the standpoint of, you know, a soloist business owner? Like when everything's working right, what should it feel like?07:30 - 07:53Shannon Weinstein: So I'll start with what the year should feel like to contribute to that. So there's a couple of key milestones you want to keep in mind. 1 is, let's just say it's post-tax season. And I'll just start from that point and then we'll work our way through the year of what it should feel like. And then I'll go through If that isn't what your year looked like, what you can do about it, because I know that we're probably at a point where there's a little control people have over what's coming up. So in the course of07:53 - 08:20Shannon Weinstein: the year, over the summer, you want to be reflecting on how the taxes went, how much you owed, where you're at, And you want to have a planning meeting with your accountant to go through any tech strategies you want to be implementing that year that could move the needle. Maybe that's opening a 401k. Maybe that is offering benefits or just having something in place, like an accountable plan for your S corporation. All of this is like jargon written, but these are the conversations you want to have with your accountant to say, Hey, what can I be08:20 - 08:48Shannon Weinstein: doing to plan? And what should I be focusing on for this year? Then you want to have a, and a lot of people don't ask for this. And we just talked about this before we hit record, which is like not knowing what to order at the counter when you go to talk to an accountant. Because there's no menu. So here's the thing. You want to order from your accountant. You want to say, Hey, would you be willing to do a pro forma return? What that means in our speak is a dress rehearsal. So if we can08:48 - 09:17Shannon Weinstein: do a dress rehearsal tax return in July or August, which I actually do July and August because I have up through June financials, which means do your books. And we put, we pull at least that through the half of the year, pull your January through June and then essentially double it. Or taking into account other factors, put together an estimate knowing half the year is already in ink and half the year is going to be in pencil and figure out, okay, if we plug this into a fake tax return, what comes out? And now you have09:17 - 09:48Shannon Weinstein: a ballpark range. It's kind of like playing pin the tail on the donkey all year, but the blindfold fades. So right now you're kind of in the dark, you can kind of halfway see through, and you're going to plot that pinpoint on the map and say, okay, it's going to be in this general region. And I think that a stress-free tax season is the byproduct of planning and looking at the numbers all year to the point where it's not a surprise. And I didn't realize this until I started my own practice that the tax bill was09:48 - 10:17Shannon Weinstein: 25% of the problem. The surprise aspect of the surprise tax bill was 75% of the problem. And I think that if you know, you're going to owe 50 grand, but you know it 10 months in advance, that is powerful. Yes, we are going to try to minimize that as much as possible. However, the time to minimize it is when you still have plenty of story left to write for the year. You do not want to wait until the book is done. You've written it and It's all in dry ink before you're like, hey, I don't like10:17 - 10:18Shannon Weinstein: that ending.10:19 - 10:36Rochelle Moulton: I'm just curious about something because I've never had an accountant actually suggest this to me and I didn't think to ask for it either. Exactly. So is this sort of a question not only that we should be asking, but that our CPA should be asking as well? Or is this just business owner only stuff?10:37 - 11:03Shannon Weinstein: In my opinion, this should be a standard offering for any tax professional. But again, I can't dictate what other people do. But I do think that you should come informed and say, Hey, I would love it if as a part of your service, and this may come in an additional fee guys, but it's worth it because I think this is the most powerful tool is if you say, Hey, could we meet in July? Because technically that's a really slow time for accountants. Like that shouldn't be a problem. So could we meet in July? And could we11:03 - 11:30Shannon Weinstein: go through a pro forma return and walk through like using 1 of the old tax returns and kind of coming up with a ballpark estimate of a range of what my liability might be with all these assumptions baked in, right? We're saying I fully understand that we're assuming Jan to June is going to repeat itself the second half of the year, or I'm assuming that these sales do close, right? We all know that entrepreneurship is this journey that's like always in pencil. Like, we don't know what's going to happen. But as long as you're aware that11:30 - 11:42Shannon Weinstein: like this isn't pencil not pen, it's better than a blank slate. So I say have something have a ballpark range, don't hold them to it from an accountability standpoint and like come run at them and say, you told me I was gonna like11:42 - 11:43Rochelle Moulton: that wouldn't be fair. Yeah,11:43 - 12:11Shannon Weinstein: no stuff changes. We don't have a crystal ball guys. But what we can do is kind of point you in the right direction from a broad standpoint and say, you're going to have somewhere between 10 and $25, 000. If I told you that you're like, all right, cool. Like I feel better now just knowing that in my power to say, if I'm going to owe 10 to 20 grand in 9 months from July, now I have the power to say, okay, but that means that if I save up 2 grand a month for the next 912:11 - 12:32Shannon Weinstein: months, I'm covered. And it's like, that feels really digestible. So then when you break that down and chunk it down into your savings goal is $2, 000 a month until tax season, most solopreneurs who are probably listening to this go, I could do that. Yeah, but if I told you, if I told you like on April 14th that like you owe 20 grand tomorrow, you'd freak out.12:33 - 12:35Rochelle Moulton: And I've seen that.12:36 - 12:59Shannon Weinstein: Yes. Nobody wants that cashflow hit. And I think that a lot of the times we fall into this trap where we're just focused on the compliance aspect of the tax return and not managing the cashflow at the same time and making sure that we have the savings to pay for it. So I think the best way to minimize tax season stress is to take away its power by predicting what's going to happen and not waiting for your fate to be read to you like a fourth quarter report card.13:00 - 13:26Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. And I think the other thing is I'm thinking about that is, is part of this, depending on your CPA, is making sure that they stay on top of this. As I've asked for different things and they forget because they're in a heavy production environment and Summer is...

Today it’s just you and me for a special bonus episode on the cusp of a brand spanking new year. I ask you an important question: how would your life be different if you stopped working on things that drain you and directed that energy to your genius zone instead?Get re-energized and re-inspired by your business for 2024:The four “zones” of activities and why only one is worthy of your focus.What makes your genius zone so powerful (and unique to you).The surprising thing that happens in your business when you shift your work to your genius zone.One way to identify your genius zone, understand its triggers and revamp your calendar so you’re excited to open it again (hint: it’s a 5-day challenge starting Monday January 8th, 2024).TAKE THE GENIUS TIME ZONE CHALLENGERESOURCES FOR SOLOISTSThe Soloist Women Mastermind (Apply January 2024) A structured eight-month mastermind with an intentionally small group of hand-picked women soloists grappling with—and solving—the same kinds of challenges. 10 Ways To Grow Revenue As A Soloist (Without Working More Hours): most of us have been conditioned to work more when we want to grow revenue—but what if we just worked differently?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 - 00:44Rochelle Moulton: Part of your challenge is to decide what breaks the barrier from your excellence zone to your genius zone and Then to craft your time so that you're firmly in your genius zone as much as you possibly can be And this is a worthy challenge if you want to live a life that is joyful, abundant, and high in impact. Hello, hello. Welcome to Soloist Women, where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton. And today it's just you and me on a special bonus episode because on the eve of a brand spanking00:44 - 01:22Rochelle Moulton: new year, I want to ask you an important question. How would your work and your life be different if you stopped working on things that drain you and directed that energy to your genius zone, to things that energize and inspire you? Now this question is actually pivotal to not only how much you enjoy your life, but how much you can earn in your business. And my goal for you, for all of us, is to spend as much time in your genius zone as humanly possible. Doing those things only you can do so you have the greatest01:22 - 01:57Rochelle Moulton: impact where you most want to direct it. So let me set the stage a bit in case you haven't heard me talk about your genius zone before. The author Gay Hendrix coined the term zone of genius in his book, The Big Leap, which I highly recommend by the way. And I love how thoughtfully he positioned the 4 zones of our activities in the world. There is the zone of incompetence. And think of that is all the things you really suck at. And you probably actively dislike doing like for me, it would be fixing stuff. Like some01:57 - 02:38Rochelle Moulton: people can look at a broken anything, a kid's toy, a computer part of plumbing do hickey and magically know which end goes where. I can't do it and I've given up trying. I have made reservations for the wrong day more than once, sent packages to 2 addresses ago, accidentally blown up my bookkeeper's spreadsheets. Administrative tasks, I suck at them. I suck at being a corporate cheerleader, or really a cheerleader of anything I don't believe in. I suck at pretending to think the latest corporate rah-rah speech is brilliance personified, probably why I'm a soloist. Give me bold02:38 - 03:15Rochelle Moulton: truth and I can work with it. I'm not waving my pom-poms for anything I don't believe in. Sitting still, I suck at that. Don't make me sit through 8 hours of talking head workshops or 2 hour speeches. I suck at sitting motionless in a room without windows. Let me move around and see a little daylight or I'm worthless. I suck at midnight anything. Literally no part of a night owl resides in my body. I suck at doing anything after the clock strikes 12 and if we're really honest, it's probably earlier than 12. There's more, trust me.03:15 - 03:58Rochelle Moulton: I suck at drawing, algebra, football, video games, pretty much anything requiring hand-eye coordination. Now the reason I'm sharing my zone of incompetence with you is I want to encourage you to cop to your suck-ats. I guarantee that you've got a long list, too. Don't be shy. Just claim your list of I never need to do this again. Then we have the zone of competence. And these are things that you do just fine, but lots of people can do them, in fact, better than you. Like bookkeeping is usually not an entrepreneur's strength, or doing taxes, or coding03:58 - 04:38Rochelle Moulton: your website. Those are better left to pros who find joy and meaning in them. Now the trickiest zone, I think, is the zone of excellence. And it's tricky because these are things that you're quite good at. In fact, you probably have regularly gotten compliments and accolades on your work at these things. And if you've ever been in a corporate environment with a boss who values your zone of excellence, it can be a velvet lined trap that keeps you from expanding beyond excellence to your true genius. And longtime clients can fall into this category too. They've decided04:38 - 05:15Rochelle Moulton: that they truly appreciate your excellence at something and they have no desire for you to change. Finally, we have the zone of genius, your genius zone. And these are the activities that no 1 else can do exactly the way that you can and you find joy and magic in them. You lose track of time when you're head down deep into them and you may feel a call to do more and more activity inside your genius zone once you've gotten a taste for how lovely it is there. And it is lovely. So here's the thing. Your genius05:15 - 05:55Rochelle Moulton: zone is unique to you. So part of your challenge is to decide what breaks the barrier from your excellence zone to your genius zone and then to craft your time so that you're firmly in your genius zone as much as you possibly can be. And this is a worthy challenge if you want to live a life that is joyful, abundant, and a high in impact. And here's why. When you live in your genius zone, you automatically dial up your joy factor and the impact you make in the world with your special thing. But you will also05:55 - 06:32Rochelle Moulton: be much more likely to increase your revenue. Because when you're deep in your genius zone doing the work that only you can do, it looks like magic to your ideal audience, to those who don't have your skill set. It's like when a mechanic fixes my car. It looks like magic to me because it's just not a skill I possess. And the same is true when you match up your genius zone with a specific group of clients and buyers who will value the transformations that you deliver. Now, discovering and living in your Genius Zone is a process06:32 - 07:10Rochelle Moulton: that anyone can master, although you will need at least a small dose of courage to experiment. And courage is a whole lot easier to tap into when you're surrounded by others that are going through the same process. So I decided to put together a 5 day genius zone time challenge for those of you who are ready to direct your energy to your genius zone. It starts next Monday, January 8th and runs through Friday, January 12th. Every day for 5 days, I'll send you 1 short video and 1 homework exercise. Then you'll pop into our Slack space07:10 - 07:47Rochelle Moulton: to share your homework, your questions or your ahas with me and your fellow participants. I'll be there every day to help ensure that the lessons stick and you're making progress. And I'll be leaving the Slack space open through the end of the month so you have a place to test and share how your Genius Zone keeps unfolding as you build this awareness. By the time you're done, you'll have built some clear boundaries around your genius zone. You'll know which triggers plus and minus to pay attention to, and you'll have revamped your calendar So you're actually excited07:47 - 08:26Rochelle Moulton: to open it again. I've included a link in the show notes so you can check it out. In the meantime, just start doing 1 thing on the regular. Notice when you're happily ensconced in work and Time simply flies. What were you doing? Where were you doing it? With whom? Once you start asking yourself these questions and paying close attention to the answers, you'll start defining the edges of your genius zone. So check out the challenge and sign up if you want to start 2024 operating at your highest, clearest frequency, doing what no 1 else can replicate.08:26 - 08:32Rochelle Moulton: Okay, so that's it for this episode. I hope you'll join us next time for Soloist Women. Bye-bye!

How can we earn twice as much in half the time, with joy and ease, while serving the highest good? That’s the fundamental question award-winning author and podcaster Jenny Blake set out to answer in both her business and her now classic book “Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business”.Jenny shares some candid insights:The thrills and challenges of moving from a rollercoaster life (high pressure, fast paced) to one of joy and ease.What can happen when you remove yourself as the bottleneck in your business (hint: there are a lot of zeros involved).Why she started a pay wall with her new content Rolling in D🤦🏻‍♀️h (and the value of continuing to experiment with your business model).The low-stress, frictionless way to design your own workable systems—even if you suck at systems.How to encourage non-linear breakthroughs vs. the “up and to the right” thinking that business owners are often encouraged to follow.LINKSJenny Blake Substack | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramRochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramBIOJenny Blake is a podcaster, Substacker, and the author of three award-winning books, including Life After College (2011), Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One (2016) and Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business (2022). Her latest project is Rolling in D🤦🏻‍♀️h: Divine Disaster Diaries from a Breadwinning Business Owner Living in New York City.She has two podcasts with over two million downloads combined: in 2015 she launched Pivot with Jenny Blake for navigating change (in the top 1% of podcasts), and in 2021 she added the Webby-nominated Free Time with Jenny Blake to set your time free through smarter systems (top 2.5%).Jenny is a lifelong bookworm and aims to work ~10-20 hours each week, leaving plenty of time to take her angel-in-fur-coat German shepherd Ryder to the park to play with sticks on their favorite grass-covered hill every afternoon. She lives in New York City with her husband Michael, a contemporary fine artist.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.TRANSCRIPTS00:00 - 00:22Jenny Blake: Say no to sailing the sea of shiny shoulds. Everybody says now, oh, you should be on YouTube if you're a podcaster, you definitely should be on social media. I don't do any of it. I don't want to. I will stop doing the thing altogether. And I think you just learn that about yourself, what you can really say no to. So you funnel your best energy into the thing that you're uniquely skilled at.00:28 - 01:10Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to Soloist Women, where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton and today I am so excited to welcome Jenny Blake. She's the author of 3 award-winning books, including my absolute favorite, free time, lose the busy work, love your business. And she has 2 podcasts with over 2 million downloads, 1 in the top 1% of all podcasts and the other in the top 2.5%. And a fascinating new substack on rolling in dough. All of that plus, and I quote, she aims to work 10 to 20 hours each week,01:10 - 01:22Rochelle Moulton: leaving plenty of time to take her angel in fur coat, German Shepherd rider to the park to play with sticks on their favorite grass covered hill every afternoon. Jenny, welcome.01:23 - 01:29Jenny Blake: Thank you so much, Rochelle. You included the favorite bit from my bio, which most people leave out. It's hanging out at the hill every day.01:29 - 01:38Rochelle Moulton: I'm sorry. Ryder has captured my attention. I've watched a couple of your short videos of him with the hose and yeah, Ryder's my guy.01:39 - 01:52Jenny Blake: Thank you. That's so sweet. Well, I guess having a dog is kind of a forcing function to take better care of even ourselves. Yeah. Food, water, exercise, grass and dirt. That's what he's brought into my life.01:53 - 02:23Rochelle Moulton: So 1 of the reasons that I knew we had to talk is the way that you describe free time in your podcast introduction. You say, how can we earn twice as much in half the time with joy and ease while serving the highest good? So let's start with how did you come to adopt that worldview? I mean, I know you're a Google alum, So I kind of imagine you were used to riding the roller coaster, right? High pressure, fast-paced environments. Like, what changed for you?02:24 - 02:53Jenny Blake: I started working at Google in 2006 when there were 6, 000 employees. And by the time I left, 5 and a half years later, it had grown to 36, 000. And I was working on really exciting global drop-in coaching programs. Life was good. And yet, I was feeling like so much of my time was spent in meetings and answering emails, that I was probably doing the work that I was uniquely qualified to do and that I most enjoyed 10 to 20 percent of any given day or week. And all the meanwhile I had been blogging so02:53 - 03:21Jenny Blake: I set up my first website Life After College in 2005 and this was kind of my side hustle but just as that phrase and that concept was getting off the ground. So what was happening is that at some point, I knew that I couldn't juggle both of those things any longer because I was hitting burnout. I would just burn out, crash, recover, burn out, crash, recover. My blog became a book. I got the book deal in 2010. And so right as it was launching, I was taking a sabbatical to start. I didn't think I was going03:21 - 03:51Jenny Blake: to leave. I was completely overcome with financial anxiety. I had been 1 of those kids that saves their birthday money. Like I was annoyed about money and really obsessed with having enough. And I just was so afraid, well, what if I leave Google? And then I end up in a van down by the river. Now it sounds cliche. Now it's a dime a dozen. Oh, why I left my six-figure job to start my own company. That's getting a lot of coverage. But at the time, it just seemed like a crazy thing to do. And in fact,03:51 - 04:18Jenny Blake: 1 of my mentors, who was a coach on the outside, when I told her I was thinking of leaving, she said, "'Oh, well, can I have your job? "'Could you put my name in?' And I thought, that's discouraging. If even the someone I'm looking at, admire on the outside, wants my job, what am I doing? And so I was so afraid, what if I go broke? What if I go broke over and over? This was the record playing infinitely in my mind. And I said, you know what, I can ask that question. What if I go04:18 - 04:48Jenny Blake: broke? At least let me at the same time ask, and what if I earn twice as much in half the time? That became a guiding light for me. Over the years, I've now been self-employed for 13 years. Just earning twice as much and half the time is no good if you hate the work, it's not making an impact. If it's kind of soulless, that doesn't interest me. So over the years I've added with joy and ease, it's just as important to me how I'm working as what I'm creating or how much I'm earning. And then that04:48 - 05:18Jenny Blake: last piece that serves the highest good for all involved is kind of doing business in a heart-based way, which you were so generous to give a shout out 1 of your recent episodes, is kind to create abundance for everybody, not just the owner benefiting from free time and systems, but the team members, the customers, the clients, the broader community, that there are so many businesses that kind of grow at all costs and then step on people to get there. That didn't interest me at all. So all 3 parts of the phrase are now equally important.05:19 - 05:53Rochelle Moulton: Wow. I could so feel that as you said those words. I felt like I was with you on the journey. I love what you said before you launched Pivot, your second book. And you said, So I committed to building a better, more blissful business, 1 that would be heart-based, systems-focused, delightfully tiny and fun. And so sort of on the same theme, can you parse that out for us a little bit? I think you just told us what heart-based is, but what are systems focused and delightfully tiny to you? What does that look like?05:54 - 06:26Jenny Blake: Well, 1 problem I had when Life After College, my first book came out, is that I was the bottleneck. The more success the book had and Target picked it up to be in the new Grad NCAP displays like among just 3 other books at that time, that was a big deal. And yet I was completely the bottleneck in terms of fulfilling any services that marketing the book would generate. So whether it was one-on-one coaching or speaking, if I got tired and I needed to take a break, the entire business engine ground to a halt. And that06:26 - 07:02Jenny Blake: was so stressful. I hated that feeling. I hated that feeling that if I needed to take time off, everything stopped. Or if I no longer wanted to do those one-on-one or even one-to-many services, that the business revenue stopped. So I became absolutely determined with my second book to build scalable revenue streams. Like I like to stay delightfully tiny as in have the minimum possible team or minimum viable team while still creating work that can scale far and wide. Again without me getting in the way of that. So it was very deliberate with Pivot of setting up07:03 - 07:31Jenny Blake: things like corporate licensing for licensing the IP, things like training a team of coaches so that I was no longer doing one-on-one work that when we got demand coming from people reading the book or listening to the podcast, they could work with somebody on the team and we would have a revenue share agreement. Those clients would even be built on monthly retainers, so there's recurring revenue. And I created a private community where it was the same amount of work if I had 10 members, 100. I never did get to a thousand, but that too was monthly07:31 - 07:46Jenny Blake: recurring revenue and licensing was annually recurring revenue. So it meant that speaking gigs became, they were very lucrative for me pre-pandemic, but they weren't the only thing that if I needed a break, those other 3 streams would keep working.07:46 - 08:03Rochelle Moulton: Well, that's always the challenge with speaking. I mean, you have to be there. And not only do you have to be there, you have to get on a plane usually. And so it's not just an hour to do a keynote. It's all the prep. It's a day of travel on either end at a minimum, depending on where you're going. It's definitely not scalable.08:04 - 08:37Jenny Blake: Absolutely. People kind of their eyes pop out of their head when they hear sometimes keynote fees. I mean, pre pandemic, I might've charged 25 K to do a cross country event, but Exactly as you said, it's minimum 3 days, but most likely I'll spend Monday packing, Tuesday flying, Wednesday doing the event and listening to other people's sessions, Thursday flying home, Friday completely exhausted and useless. There will be no work getting done. And that's the best case scenario if you don't get sick or come down with something, which is very much a possibility now. So it's really08:37 - 08:40Jenny Blake: not the hour that you're on stage. It's the week of opportunity cost.08:40 - 08:52Rochelle Moulton: Exactly. I think we forget about that. But do I remember correctly in the book that you talked about when you did this, when you license your pivot programs that translated into almost $700, 000 of revenue that year?08:53 - 09:26Jenny Blake: Yes, I had 2 licensing clients. I really for 8 years tried to land a third. The pandemic hit right in the middle of those efforts, so I never did. But it was six-figure contracts that would recur annually, and now I'm down to 1 client. But between those 2 clients, I mean, that was at least halfway to earning what I earned. And yes, that was 2019 that I hit 700k. And I actually wrote a post on Rolling and Doe about why revenue goals don't work for me because09:26 - 09:27Rochelle Moulton: I just read that yesterday.09:29 - 09:56Jenny Blake: Yeah, I'd been so obsessed with hitting the elusive 7 figures that I didn't really appreciate the 700k that I could have, would have, should have, knowing that it was only going to go down for the next few, having so much disruption these last few years. And you know, I'm kind of, I have to own my part in that too, that I wrote a book called Pivot about being agile. Sometimes I feel like the disruption shakes me up because I'm meant to do something new and different. I'm not the type that will just give the same stump09:56 - 10:36Jenny Blake: speech for 25 years. So a combination of factors, but yes, licensing was super joyful. I mean, talk about the intersection of revenue, joy, and ease, because I joked that this 1 at that time, it was Microsoft Word. This 1 Microsoft Word file landed $150, 000 book advance, paid out in 4 parts over 2 years. And then the licensing generated almost a million dollars over the next 8. All from these ideas in my head. That's what I found so mind blowing about what's possible for licensing IP. And once you create IP with a really strong brand around10:36 - 11:07Jenny Blake: it, I don't think it's just IP, it's everything else that goes with it. Having a book and a workbook and a process and method that really resonates, companies seem to love that. But it was just so incredible to me that that 1 little word file could generate so much. And also, it made me really happy that keynote speaking, I am the bottleneck to the information getting out into the world. But with licensing, people can teach each other within companies and they can teach in their own language and it just made me really happy once I let11:07 - 11:23Jenny Blake: go of the perfectionism of trying to control exactly how the pivot material was taught everywhere. To actually let it loose, set it free, let it spread And I think ultimately that has also helped with other parts of the business like book sales or podcast listeners and things like that.11:23 - 11:55Rochelle Moulton: Well, I think about just the, on the impact alone, you've got all of a sudden you have multiple people using this material, learning it, teaching it to each other. You could never do that 1 by 1, 1 at a time, even speaking, it's still limiting. Totally get that. I love that. Absolutely. Well, you kind of led me into my next question because I was looking at Rolling and Doe and what you're doing with that, and this is the outside looking in, so please tell me if I've got this wrong, it's something that I mostly see with11:55 - 12:20Rochelle Moulton: journalistic writers. So you've created a paywall and sub stack, right? So you have a revenue stream from your content. And can you walk us through your thinking about that, and especially how it plays into spending your time? And I'm wondering, because it feels experimental. Like, maybe there's another book incubating there. I sort of feel like I'm seeing book number 4.12:21 - 12:53Jenny Blake: Thank you for saying that. Yes, people have asked. The story behind Rolling and Doe is that I lost my biggest and favorite licensing client and hint, hint, it's my former corporate alma mater. So I don't want to say it publicly because I sign all kinds of NDAs and whatnot. But I loved every year for 7 and a half years working with them and I loved when I would come in for keynotes. I always think it's just I got them, they got me. But it's been a very strange year in business. 2023 started with the fastest bank12:53 - 13:26Jenny Blake: run in history with Silicon Valley Bank. WeWork declared bankruptcy. I mean, things are still very wonky despite all the headlines saying that, oh, we have a soft landing and immaculate deflation. Like, I don't think I'm feeling that in small business. Neither are any of my small business owner friends, maybe with 1 or 2 exceptions. And so what happened when the pandemic hit was that I lost 80% of my income in the first 2 weeks of March after the lockdown between speaking gigs that were canceled 2 years out into the future. I had an $80, 000 workbook13:26 - 13:55Jenny Blake: licensing contract that was overdue to be signed. They were supposed to sign by end of January. They pulled out at the last minute. So I just watched my entire business. I mean, it was beyond every worst fear that I had of what could happen running my business. It was just so much worse than what I had ever imagined. And I'm the breadwinner for our family. So it's me, my husband and Ryder, as you mentioned. The difference between that moment and then losing this biggest favorite client in 2023 was that now I was out of runway. I13:55 - 14:27Jenny Blake: had spent 2 years investing in free time, creating the most beautiful book that I could imagine, launching the podcast, launching this whole new part of my business that was really where my heart was, which was working with small business owners with delightfully tiny teams. But now this time losing that client and having 2 days later, another licensing client who had a proposal out for a year came back and said they're going to go with another vendor. So once again, 150 K wiped off the table in a week. And now I'm tired and I don't have any14:27 - 14:57Jenny Blake: more savings. I'm just at my wit's end. And I did not know...

You’ve made bold moves to get where you are, including having the guts to buck the norm and go solo. But are you still taking new (calculated) risks to build the business and life you’ve imagined? Consultant to open source start-ups—and confirmed risk taker—Emily Omier believes we need to take more risks.Emily shares her gutsy story and what it’s taught her about risk:What happens when you hit rock bottom in your life (while running your business) and must pull yourself out of it.The difference between something that is risky vs. something that feels risky.Why we—women in particular—don’t take nearly enough thoughtful risks.The road from “mercenary” (where it’s mostly about the money) to collaboration (where it’s all about relationships and outcomes).How paying attention to these two emotions will teach you what risks are worth your time and investment.LINKSEmily Omier Website | Podcast | LinkedInRochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramBIOEmily helps open source startups accelerate revenue growth with killer positioning. She writes about entrepreneurship for engineers, and hosts The Business of Open Source, a podcast about building open source companies.BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLERESOURCES FOR SOLOISTSThe Soloist Women Mastermind (Apply January 2024) A structured eight-month mastermind with an intentionally small group of hand-picked women soloists grappling with—and solving—the same kinds of challenges. 10 Ways To Grow Revenue As A Soloist (Without Working More Hours): most of us have been conditioned to work more when we want to grow revenue—but what if we just worked differently?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 - 00:32Emily Omier: It's not about not being afraid. It's about doing it anyway. And I think that that's a message that both men and women need to hear, but I think it's probably especially for women, that something can make you really uncomfortable, but you do it anyway. And I mean, you wanna be obviously like conscious of I'm doing this because like, I think it's gonna be good for my business, but don't let the fear of looking bad or the fear of humiliation stop you from doing things that are gonna be really good for your business that are basically, you00:32 - 00:34Emily Omier: know, putting yourself out there.00:38 - 01:17Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to Soloist   Women, where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton. And today I'm here with Emily O'Meer, who I like and respect so much. And 1, because she pretty much says exactly what she thinks and it's always interesting. And 2, because she's never shied away from adventure or made excuses, even when life dealt her a rough hand. So Emily helps open source startups accelerate revenue growth with killer positioning. She writes about entrepreneurship for engineers and hosts the Business of Open Source, a podcast about building open source01:17 - 01:24Rochelle Moulton: companies. And she's also a card carrying member of the soloist women community. So Emily, welcome.01:24 - 01:27Emily Omier: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on, Rochelle.01:27 - 01:49Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, I'm so excited about this. So we could talk about your recent move from the US to Paris, and I suspect we will. But I know that that's not even close to the riskiest move you've made. So we've got a lot to talk about. I'd like to start with what made you decide to first start your business. Do I remember rightly? Did you begin as a content writer?01:50 - 02:21Emily Omier: Yes. So I'm going to go ahead and start at the beginning-ish, if that works for you. Sure. So first of all, thank you for having me on the show. And I also just wanted to mention like why I'm so excited to come on the on the show. There's something in it for me too, which is that I've noticed at this point in my career that a lot of things that I did really early on that didn't used to really make sense to me are starting to make sense. Like I feel like I'm pulling together a lot02:21 - 02:53Emily Omier: of experiences that I've had, but I still feel like it's a little bit disjointed. And so I'm actually using this as an opportunity to figure out where all the threads are and make sense of things. So I'm gonna go ahead and start at the beginning. So I am from Oregon. I lived in Switzerland when I was in high school. When I was in college I lived in Russia for a while. Well I did like a year in Russia, but I also worked in a bar there. So it was not like your average year abroad in some02:53 - 03:30Emily Omier: ways, some very important ways. And then I finished college and I was like, I've got to get a job and got like an office job. And I just like, so bad, so bad. And I think a lot of people in the community have had the experience of like getting a job and then being like, what the hell was I thinking? Like, this is, this is not me. But I got the hell out of there. I moved to Spain with my boyfriend at the time, later became my husband. And you could say like, that was the first03:30 - 03:48Emily Omier: time that I had a business, I was like I was teaching English, but it was freelance. So like I had to go, I had to hustle for clients and stuff like that. And then I also had an idea to build a company doing audio podcast tours. This never took off.03:48 - 03:51Rochelle Moulton: You didn't know that about your story. Okay.03:51 - 03:54Emily Omier: I know. I know there's a lot of things you don't know about me, Rachelle.03:55 - 03:56Rochelle Moulton: Well, good. Let's hear03:56 - 04:32Emily Omier: it all. So I had this idea and at the time iPods were kind of new and I was like I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna do this and so somebody asked me or no so I asked somebody like how do I build a website like I don't I don't know any of that and they recommended that I use this software called Drupal. Drupal incidentally is an open source software. So is WordPress, which is their main competitor, at least at the time. And anyway, WordPress would have been the better option. Drupal is really, really fucking complicated. And04:32 - 05:09Emily Omier: this was terrible advice, but I like figured out how to do it and I built this website on Drupal. I never made a business out of my iPod tour guides, but I did record, like I did record actually a bunch of, they existed. It's just that I was really good at marketing myself as a service provider and not good at marketing a product. I wouldn't even say that I was not good at marketing a product. I lacked the self-confidence to even tell people that this existed. That's a problem. Yeah. In fact, when I think back now,05:10 - 05:47Emily Omier: as somebody who later went on to professionally do marketing communications, I think that part of some companies, even real companies, not like my fake company, are like, it's a lack of confidence issue that can be behind some marketing issues, almost like people not being really confident that like, hey, this thing I created is like so cool that you should check it out and buy it. So anyway, then after a couple of years, I moved to New York City. I was a tour guide. So I had the tour, the podcast tour ideas. I was like, how am05:47 - 06:19Emily Omier: I gonna figure out how that works? Well, I'm gonna be a tour guide when I move to New York. So I did that. I did tours in, I did tours in English. I also did tours in German and Spanish. And I really liked it. It also was really good for learning how to be comfortable speaking with public speaking because every day you were speaking in front of a group and it was always different. There was always something that you couldn't control about what was going on. So I did that. Then I went to graduate school. I06:19 - 06:39Emily Omier: went to graduate school at Columbia University and then here in Paris at Sciences Po. And then tried to be a freelance journalist for 3 years. I went to journalism school and that like being a journalist that was financially an absolute complete failure. Yeah, period.06:40 - 06:43Rochelle Moulton: Well, usually nobody goes into journalism for the money.06:43 - 07:21Emily Omier: Yeah, well, you don't go into journalism for the money, but like you do hope to like be living somewhere like slightly above the poverty line and that didn't work out for me. So anyway at a certain point, well not just at a certain point, so then I got married then a couple years later I got pregnant and my husband when I was pregnant was diagnosed with cancer and he fucking died. So that sucked. And that was, It was actually not just his death that made me like, wow, I better like stop fucking around and like make07:21 - 07:41Emily Omier: some money. That made me decide that I really need to get serious about like a business that actually pays. And guess what? Journalism is not a business that pays. I didn't start my business immediately, incidentally. So my mom also died a year after my husband. So like an infant, my mom was sick. I was taking care of her.07:41 - 07:44Rochelle Moulton: So your husband passed away after your daughter was born?07:45 - 08:21Emily Omier: Yeah, 2 months after she was born, but he was very ill. So he was diagnosed with cancer when I was 5 months pregnant. And then he was like from moment of diagnosis to his death, very, very ill, like increasingly ill, but like even at the beginning, we're talking like multiple hospitalizations, like doctor's appointments almost every day. I mean, it was really a nightmare. And I do wanna like put this out there because a lot of people have asked me, they're like, Emily, how did you keep your business going? Well, all these other things were going on.08:21 - 08:57Emily Omier: And I'm like, I didn't. Like, I mean, you don't like there, there is a point at which you just can't realistically keep a business going because it's so in the situation I'm thinking about literally like there would be an urgent doctor's appointment like every other day you can't have a meeting with a client like scheduled because you would just be canceling it all the time and you have all these other you know managing somebody's illness is it's like a job in and of itself, like you're making appointments. Anyway, long story short, if you're like going through08:57 - 09:07Emily Omier: a really rough time like that, do not think, oh, everyone else out there is like managing this and keeping their business afloat, because they're not. They're not. Exactly.09:07 - 09:12Rochelle Moulton: And so where were you in the world when all this happened? Were you back in the States, or were you overseas?09:13 - 09:14Emily Omier: Yeah, I was in Portland.09:15 - 09:18Rochelle Moulton: OK. And then your mother passed away. So here you are09:18 - 09:58Emily Omier: with really lots of major, somewhat terrifying life changes. So what did you do? Well, my husband was from Nicaragua, and I moved to Nicaragua. Which is sort of funny to talk about afterwards, but at the time I was like, well, in spite of being very cynical about journalism, I had a book project that I wanted to work on that required doing research in Nicaragua. It's a book that is still worth, it should be written. I'm not sure if the archives that I was researching at still exist. I hope so. But so my mom died and I09:58 - 10:05Emily Omier: was like, I'm moving to Nicaragua. Yeah, my daughter was 20 months old when we moved there.10:06 - 10:06Rochelle Moulton: Gutsy.10:07 - 10:33Emily Omier: You know, it's interesting because I didn't really even think, I didn't think like that. I think it also just goes to show you how sometimes the, you know, people are different, the things that seem like risky or gutsy to you. At the time, I was just like, I want to write this book. I want to make sure my daughter gets Nicaraguan citizenship. Not that like a Nicaraguan passport is like the golden ticket, but I thought it was really good to have a connection to her dad.10:33 - 10:35Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, it's her father.10:35 - 10:53Emily Omier: And you know, and I wanted to write this book and plus like stuff is cheap in Nicaragua and like you can like child care doesn't cost an arm and a leg. So I was like, that's also not a bad thing. So yeah, and you know, I'd been there before, like I kind of didn't know 100% what I was getting into, but it wasn't a total unknown either.10:54 - 11:01Rochelle Moulton: And so what happened while you were there? Yeah. I know the answer, but I want11:01 - 11:01Emily Omier: to hear11:02 - 11:04Rochelle Moulton: it. Our listeners want to hear this.11:04 - 11:43Emily Omier: So Nicaragua being not a very large country doesn't always get tons of news coverage. But in 2018, there was pretty massive civil unrest that for a while, at least from on the ground, it looked like it was going to civil war. It didn't. The government sort of effectively, though fairly violently, suppressed the civil unrest that was going on. But yeah, so I left. There was a period of about a week where everybody that I knew like all the expats all the Nicaraguans with like the means to do so they like fled the country. Some people ended11:43 - 12:01Emily Omier: up going back but far from everybody. So yeah then here we are We're a little over 2 years after my husband had died and my mom, my mom's died and and I've just like fled Nicaragua. I will mention like if you ever have to buy a ticket at the airport this is a bad situation.12:03 - 12:09Rochelle Moulton: I just have this picture in my head of you and your daughter like fleeing for your lives, trying to get12:09 - 12:44Emily Omier: the last plane out. I mean, it wasn't quite that like dramatic, but yeah, there was like no moment when I really feared for my life. But it was just that you, you know, when you're in a situation like that, that's fluid, you wanna sort of mentally make a line, like at what point does this become untenable for us to stay? And what happened is like the line was crossed. We actually had plane tickets to come back to the US just for the summer and they were for like a week later. And I was like, no, we're12:44 - 13:19Emily Omier: not waiting a week. We're going to the airport and leaving now. So on the 1 hand, I think it was probably less dramatic than it sounds. On the other hand, I think in terms of how it affected me emotionally, not because of the drama of leaving the country in a rush, but rather that I had to abandon this, first of all I had to abandon this professional project that had been fairly important to me and I had to sort of abandon what I thought of as was my plan for the next several years at least. And13:19 - 13:53Emily Omier: at the same time, like nobody could relate unless they had been there. Whereas at least when you have a conversation with someone and you're like, my husband died, they're like, oh, I have a mental image of what that would be like. Or my mom died. Okay, I can like I have, I have in my head and understanding of what that means. But like, I just had to abandon this project that was really important to me and leave this country. It wasn't my country, but like I was invested in staying there for a while and I had13:53 - 14:26Emily Omier: a pretty real connection because of my husband. And now I'm like sleeping on a mattress on the floor of my dad's spare bedroom with my 2 year old daughter and like thinking what the fuck's next. That's not a thing that people could relate to. And that was really the moment I was like, I don't know where I'm gonna go next. And at that point I had my business, my business had already been started for, I'd been working on it for a good year and a half. I started it before moving to Nicaragua. So I knew where14:26 - 14:45Emily Omier: I was going with my business, but I had no fucking idea what I was doing with my life. It was like the third straw or the third shoe drops and it was, yeah, it's pretty intense. So I tried to answer your question as fully as possible 20 minutes later.14:45 - 15:23Rochelle Moulton: I mean, no, but this is why I wanted you to come on the show, because this odyssey is so unusual. And yet there are so many pieces of this that are relatable. I mean, most of us have been metaphorically on the mattress wondering what's next. Not your specific set of circumstances, but I mean, the question becomes, what do you do when you're at your lowest point? Like, how do you get yourself back up and do the next thing? Right? So, So your next thing was the shall I call it a writing business content, strategy content, writing.15:23 - 16:06Emily Omier: Yeah, so at the time, and that wasn't new, when I sort of restarted my professional life after my husband's death, actually after my husband's death, as my mom was declining, I had really thought through how do I take the skills that I already have, apply them to something that I think is reasonably interesting that I'm not gonna hate doing, but also where they're...

Moving from traditional custom projects to productized services can completely change how you run your business: think more revenue, more free time and more joy in your work and your life. No BS Agency founder Pia Silva did it for her own branding agency and now teaches others to do the same.We had a candid conversation about:What happens when your business is successful financially, but not sustainable.Why you want to evaluate both the revenue and profit of each service before deciding to launch—and how to build your confidence in making new offers.The mindset and behavioral shifts required to shrink 3-6-12 month projects down to just a few days.Your freedom calculator—Pia’s formula to design and price your work so that you have “enough” revenue, free time and flexibility for the life you want.What it’s like to shift from serving clients to teaching and coaching other people like you (and why Pia went all in immediately).LINKSPia Silva Crash Course | LinkedIn | InstagramRochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramGUEST BIOPia Silva is the founder of No BS Agency Mastery where she teaches 1-2 person branding agencies to scale to $30k months without employees. She’s also a TEDx speaker, a Forbes contributor, podcast host and the author of Badass Your Brand.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 – 00:29Pia Silva: That was the light bulb moment. It was, wow, I’m surrounded by people who will pay us $3, 000. And that is more profitable. And we had just let our employees go. And Steve and I said, let’s go all in. I’m not kidding when I say like overnight, we completely changed our website. And I called back, I had a bunch of outstanding proposals and I actually just called them all up and I said, hey, you know that big project that you’re still thinking on, consider that moot. We are no longer doing that, but I can do basically00:29 – 00:39Pia Silva: the same project for you for 3, 000 or if it was bigger, I said 2 days of 5000. I closed all of those on the spot and that was the beginning of it.00:43 – 01:17Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to Soloist Women where we’re all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I’m Rochelle Moulton, and today I’m here with Pia Silva, whose work I’ve been following for a few years, much admired. Pia is the founder of NoBS Agency Mastery, where she teaches 1 to 2 person branding agencies to scale to 30K months without employees. And we love that here. She’s also a TEDx speaker, a Forbes contributor, podcast host, and the author of Badass Your Brand. Pia, welcome.01:18 – 01:20Pia Silva: Thank you so much, Rochelle. So happy to be here.01:21 – 01:47Rochelle Moulton: Awesome. Well, 1 of the reasons that I’m excited to talk to you is that you’ve made productized services work so well in a niche that’s littered with people working lots of stressful hours and frankly not pulling in nearly as much as they could in revenue. So let’s start with what made you decide to first start your business, which if I understand correctly was initially a brand agency that you founded with your husband, is that right?01:48 – 02:16Pia Silva: Yes, I don’t even think I would call it starting a business. He was my fiance then, and he was a freelance graphic designer. And I was in the gig economy before we called it that. And at some point, it just became clear, hey, you’re really talented at this thing, maybe not as talented at finding the clients, managing the clients, invoicing all of that stuff. And while I have absolutely no experience in the design world, you know, I’m a fast learner. I can figure02:16 – 02:16Rochelle Moulton: this out. And I think I could02:16 – 02:18Pia Silva: do it better than you, no offense, because you’re02:18 – 02:37Rochelle Moulton: an artist and you should just do what you do best and let me figure this out and that’s actually how it started. Oh, I love that. I love that. So let’s talk revenue. So if you can think back to like your first couple of years, 1 of the things we love to ask people is how long did it take you to hit your first hundred thousand dollars? Do you remember?02:37 – 02:59Pia Silva: Absolutely, because we did it our first year. We did, but you have to remember we are 2 people who were working not just full-time, probably 7 days a week, living in the middle of New York City in 1 of the most expensive neighborhoods. So eking out $100K, I don’t know if we could have survived making less, frankly.02:59 – 03:09Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. New York is a challenge. So how painful was it then? I mean, does do you remember that as being sort of a painful process to get that thing going?03:09 – 03:39Pia Silva: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I hadn’t, like I said before, I had no context or idea what I was doing. So the first month and a half, it was just Craigslist. It was literally just me refreshing Craigslist and applying to every gig I could find. 1 of the gigs I found, the woman that we did this job for invited me to her B&I group. I did not know this idea of networking even existed. She was like, oh, you should come to this thing I do. And I joined. I was like, this is the answer. And then I just03:39 – 04:10Pia Silva: networked my face off for about a year and a half. And I, when I tell you, like, I went all in on this. It was every day, all day, meetings, events. I joined other groups too and I built a network very quickly. So, you know, just between that, I mean, we were charging by the hour at that point. When we first started, we were charging $30 an hour. We charged her, I remember, I mean I love numbers so I remember every number, we charged her $40 an hour and she convinced us that we needed to start04:10 – 04:13Pia Silva: charging $65 an hour and we probably charged that for a while.04:15 – 04:23Rochelle Moulton: It’s funny how hard it is psychologically sometimes to just make that shift when you’re in hourly or even a flat price and making it higher. It’s04:23 – 04:23Pia Silva: just some04:24 – 04:26Rochelle Moulton: kind of resistance around that, right?04:26 – 04:34Pia Silva: Rochelle, I remember when I told my dad, who’s an accountant, that we were making $65 an hour and I was so proud. I was like, we’re going04:34 – 04:36Rochelle Moulton: to be rich. He was like,04:36 – 04:44Pia Silva: that’s not a lot of money, Pia, $200 an hour, maybe. It’s like $200 an hour. Like that will never happen. Pretty amazing.04:45 – 05:01Rochelle Moulton: It is. I love the journey. So I remember either seeing or hearing about how the light bulb went off in your agency business that started you down the path of the product I service you’ve created, the no BS agency idea and model. I mean, can05:01 – 05:37Pia Silva: you tell us the story? Like, how did you get to that place? Yeah, so it was 2 moments. The first moment was in 2013 with a business coach, and I was pushing to get these $30, 000 clients. I had assessed our process and how much our overhead was and figured out that these projects we were doing needed to be charging about $30, 000 for us to eke out a living, honestly, because we had 2 employees at the time. I had this big network. People seemed to like me and trust me, but I could not get these05:37 – 06:04Pia Silva: to close. And so they were few and far between. And I said to this business coach, I’m talking to all these people who wanna work with us, but they just don’t have the budget at all. And he said, well, what budget do they have? I was like, I don’t know, $3, 000. And he said, well, what could you do for $3, 000? And I said, I mean, we could actually do a lot of stuff in a day. If they would just pay us for the day, I think Steve and I could act, Steve’s like we could06:04 – 06:31Pia Silva: build a web. This was right at the beginning of Squarespace and we were using it. We could probably build like a home page and maybe an interior page and a logo and a business card. And I could kind of consult on the branding. So we had this as a secret offer. I didn’t want anyone to know about it because I wanted to sell the big thing and we Sold that out of my back pocket for a year sporadically it didn’t sell that well at the time who was we weren’t really all in on it a Year06:31 – 07:06Pia Silva: later we find ourselves in $40, 000 of debt, which at the time was us completely maxed out, freaking out, had to let our employees go. And that’s when we kind of looked at this thing, this Brand up, we called it a brand up, this secret brand up, and we said, you know what? $3, 000 for this 1 day is so much more profitable than even the $30, 000 projects that we are closing sporadically. If I tally up all the energy and time that we spend doing that $30, 000 project, it takes way more than 10 full07:06 – 07:39Pia Silva: days of our time to execute. And if I just do the math, 1 day at $3, 000 is more profitable than probably 20 plus days for the $30, 000 project. And that was the lightbulb moment. It was, wow, I’m surrounded by people who will pay us $3, 000, and that is more profitable. And we had just let our employees go, and Steve and I said, let’s go all in. I’m not kidding when I say like overnight, we completely changed our website. And I called back, I had a bunch of outstanding proposals and I actually just called07:39 – 07:57Pia Silva: them all up. And I said, Hey, you know, that big project that you’re still thinking on, consider that moot. We are no longer doing that. But I can do basically the same project for you for 3, 000 or if it was bigger, I said 2 days of 5, 000. And I closed all of those on the spot. And that was the beginning of it.07:58 – 08:27Rochelle Moulton: Mic drop. Mic drop. So I want to pull out a couple of things you said here. I mean, the first thing is sort of the difference between revenue and profit, right? Cause it’s easy to like the 30, 000 feels like the big shiny thing that we should want to have. And I love that the $3, 000 thing was secret until you figured that out. And I hate to say it, but it’s almost like you had to have that pile of debt and the pressure of employees and having to let them go to be able to see08:28 – 08:29Rochelle Moulton: what was right there.08:30 – 08:46Pia Silva: A hundred percent. Yes. I would have just kept going because I had an unrealistic vision of what this was supposed to look like. And I didn’t connect the fact that those $30, 000 projects were actually unprofitable. I just didn’t get it until I was forced into a corner.08:46 – 09:23Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. Well, why would you? Right? I mean, you did what humans do. We look at, well, 30, 000 is better than 3000. Right. Right? Yeah. But yeah, every dollar is not equal. Nope. Right. So when you think about like the traditional agency model, especially with I think of graphic design where you’re dealing with websites and timelines and strict budgets. I mean, what challenges do you see people like graphic designers and brand strategists facing when they organize that way and more of an agency, traditional, either hourly rate or fee for service09:23 – 09:59Pia Silva: way. Well, how much time do we have, Rochelle? It’s every step of the process I see a problem in now, starting from the very beginning. My experience of all of those pitches, it was a very defense place to come from. It was you, the prospect, have all the cards, you have all the power, And I’m here tap dancing and trying to convince you that I’m worthy of you. I’m putting so much time and energy into talking to you and meeting with you and making decks and proposals and following up and all of this. And you just09:59 – 10:36Pia Silva: get to say yes or no, or nothing at all. I mean, you get ghosted, right? Even when we did close on those, I mean, I was starting to use some of the strategies I use now to build the authority within the relationship. But I do think the free pitch, it starts the relationship off on the wrong foot. You’ve just done a ton of free work. And so it’s an unequal relationship. Whereas now where we teach to actually pay for that first step, there’s immediate respect and value of your time and your expertise. So that would be10:36 – 11:12Pia Silva: the first part. And then I think probably overall there is this thing that I’ve noticed happens with creative projects that are stretched out over many months where there’s a lot of excitement and momentum in the beginning from both sides. And then it kind of dwindles and it kind of gets exhausting and the client has different ideas that pop up or somebody says something and there’s lots of wrenches being thrown in because it’s happening over time, and that makes it take even longer. And by the end, everyone just wants it to finish, and there’s punch lists, and11:12 – 11:44Pia Silva: all of these things are what make it exhausting. It loses the fun and excitement of it because your creative work is getting often watered down by that process, right? Either by the client or by the committee or by the client’s friends and family. But whatever it is, the thing that you’re doing this for, it doesn’t usually look exactly like that at the end. And sometimes it looks quite different. And it’s really upsetting when you do a project and you are so excited about it and you put all this energy into it and then it gets watered11:44 – 11:52Pia Silva: down by committee. And then the thing that goes out in the end, you’re not even that excited to show on your website. So those are just a couple off the top of my head.11:55 – 12:13Rochelle Moulton: Well I’m struck by the length of the project. I mean, I think that’s, I mean, we all know, right, the longer a project goes on, unless you’re doing certain kinds of change work, the longer a creative project goes on, the more voices will get in the mix. What is that? The camel is a horse designed by a committee?12:14 – 12:15Pia Silva: I’ve never heard that.12:15 – 12:20Rochelle Moulton: Oh, yeah. Yeah. So once you get the committee in there, it does not look like the horse you had intended12:20 – 12:22Pia Silva: from the beginning. Oh my God.12:22 – 12:39Rochelle Moulton: That’s funny. So obviously you have a solution to all this, Pia, but I’d like you to have you talk about how you advise these folks to get off that hamster wheel of attracting serving clients on projects that stretch out over months versus days?12:40 – 13:18Pia Silva: Well, I think there’s a lot of mindset shifts that have to happen in order to shrink a project. The way we position it is we shrink multi-month, 3, 6, 12-month projects down to a couple of day intensives. So right now, our company, most of our clients would be a two-day intensive for $40, 000. And a lot of people think the mindset is, well, I’m paying more for less, right? I actually heard that yesterday. Someone said, but why would they pay more for less? And I said, they’re not getting less, they’re getting more. What they’re getting is13:18 – 13:49Pia Silva: 6 months of their life back. What they’re getting is actually the version of the work that they need, not the version of the work that they watered down. What they’re getting is the ability to get that brand out there to sell at a higher price point, to position them as an expert, to show their authority. 6 months earlier, I mean, the longer it takes to do this kind of work, there’s such an opportunity cost in not doing that. And, you know, they’re getting their mental space back. I’ve hired a lot of service providers over the years13:49 – 14:20Pia Silva: too and when it goes on forever, it’s this thing that just takes up real estate in your brain, wondering how it’s going, I have to get on more meetings. You know, oh, now I gotta give feedback. It takes away from running your business. So I think 1 of the biggest mindset shifts is shrinking it down does not mean delivering less value. In fact, it can mean, and it should mean delivering more value. And just to be super clear, When I say $40, 000 for a two-day intensive, we are not doing the work in those 2 days.14:20 – 14:42Pia Silva: We are doing the work beforehand, completely actually. The 2 days is the time where we present it to the client. We take them through a process of getting feedback and making revisions in real time, such that at the end of the 2 days it’s launched. But we have as much time as we need to do the best job possible. And that is always the goal.14:42 – 15:05Rochelle Moulton: Couple things strike me there. 1 is the word that comes to mind is speed, right? Clients do pay for speed. And what you’re doing is, as you said, they get 6 months of their life back. And I would absolutely use that in my marketing if I were doing that. And I think then the other piece is that this $40, 000, this is what you used to do for 3 to $5, 000, correct?15:06 – 15:38Pia Silva: Technically, but I would say the project’s definitely got bigger, but the value also got higher because we got more strategic, right? So we’re better at it. I have more authority, so there’s a lot of trust there. And I find that in creative work, it’s not just doing good work. There’s a lot of people out there who do amazing work. There are students out there where if you look at their portfolio, it’s beautiful. It’s really not about the craft anymore. To me, it’s an assumption. I assume that your work is good. What we need to layer on15:38 – 16:10Pia Silva: top in order to get this higher price point and this higher value is your own confidence in the work and how it relates to the goals of the...

Selling doesn’t have to be a grind—in fact it can be a joyful opportunity to help your ideal clients and buyers achieve their vision. That’s the refreshing viewpoint of sales maven and Win Without Pitching leader Shannyn Lee.We explore:How to take control of conversations around fees and value (hint: you may need to kick some old baggage to the curb).Developing selling frameworks that define how you’ll respond in each stage of your buyer’s journey (including how you’ll vet them).Why you want to be “kind but ruthless” (and exactly what that looks like).The surprising role joy can play in your selling and marketing efforts.Using LinkedIn to engage future clients and build relationships—and one winning way to turn “cold” into warm.LINKSShannyn Lee | Website | YouTube | LinkedInRochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramGUEST BIOShannyn Lee is the Managing Director for Win Without Pitching and an unstoppable force of human empowerment.She spent a decade in senior marketing and communication roles in Fortune 500 companies before moving to a business development leadership role at a well-regarded Seattle design firm. She also spent four years at Catapult New Business where she worked with agencies of various disciplines and size, building and leading their business development programs.Her time on the front lines of agency business development coupled with many informative years on the client side, has given Shannyn a unique perspective into what marketers are looking for in agencies and what agencies must be doing in order to compete and win.Shannyn’s empathetic and encouraging coaching skills have helped her clients translate the lofty Win Without Pitching ideals into real behavioral change with lasting results.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.TRANSCRIPT 00:01 – 00:31Shannyn Lee: Pick the 1 thing that you enjoy doing. Maybe it’s writing, maybe it’s a podcast, maybe it’s videos on a YouTube channel, and go all in on it and do it well, and then leverage that content to turn it into other things. So you might write an article that you then chunk up and use for LinkedIn posts or tweets, right? But you’re 1 person, you can only do so much. So you need to get disciplined about what’s the 1 thing you’re going to be good at. And you need to block it on your calendar, 1 hour a00:31 – 00:42Shannyn Lee: day, 3 days a week, that’s non-negotiable unless the house is burning down. And then you need to have some fun with it, frankly, so that you keep doing it and find some source of joy and inspiration in it.00:47 – 01:16Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to Soloist Women, where we’re all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I’m Rochelle Moulton, and today I’m here with Shannon Lee, who is the managing director for Win Without Pitching, and I quote, an unstoppable force of human empowerment. And having seen her in action, I can attest. She’s also a salesmaven with off the chart empathy and encouragement skills. So Shannon, welcome.01:16 – 01:20Shannyn Lee: Thank you so much, Rochelle. I’m so excited to be here with01:20 – 01:51Rochelle Moulton: you. Well that makes 2 of us. 1 of the reasons I’m really excited is because you’ve got such a rich and varied set of experiences in B2B conceptual sales that I think will be hugely helpful to our audience. But you also have a point of view around sales that I’d love to dial into. So let’s dive in. Sounds good. And I’d like to start with your story. Now you’re clearly not a soloist and yet I couldn’t wait to have you on the show after we spent just a little bit of time together. So tell us some01:51 – 01:56Rochelle Moulton: more about how you got to this place and your role today with Win Without Pitching.01:57 – 02:30Shannyn Lee: Yeah, you bet. Whenever I look back on my journey, I think there are just key moments along the way that I think, well, did it get me here or not? But what I have come to realize is there’s some varied experience that has allowed me to just step into who I am and be really comfortable with that and really try to help others in these moments, specifically now around selling. And so I’m a big fan of varied experience. And so professionally, I started on the corporate side and worked for some of the biggest companies in the02:30 – 03:02Shannyn Lee: world, AT&T Wireless, for example. And I was thick in the politics of what that means to work for a big organization and navigating my way through. And I learned I liked a smaller opportunity and jumped over to the design agency side of the business, where I worked for small firms that built brands and designed annual reports. And that’s where I landed in my first sales role. And when the opportunity was presented to me, I really had no idea what it meant to sell for a design agency. But I just was brave and said, yeah, I want03:02 – 03:32Shannyn Lee: to do it because I want to be around creative people. I want to make an impact. And I really took to it and really found that it was a superpower for me. And I was fortunate enough at that agency to meet Blair Enns, who’s the founder of Win Without Pitching, because we had him come in and teach us how to sell the Win Without Pitching way. And it was in that moment that I realized kind of how much of myself I had lost on the big corporate giant side, and how much permission he was giving me03:32 – 03:38Shannyn Lee: in that moment to sell from a place of help and empathy and creating value.03:39 – 03:40Rochelle Moulton: Imagine that.03:40 – 04:09Shannyn Lee: Yeah, right. Be yourself and see if you can help. And it just took off from there. We stayed in close touch. He was a mentor and he asked me about 9 or 10 years ago to join as a coach. And I’ve been doing this for all of those years and now moving into a leadership role in January where I’m taking over day-to-day operations of the company. So it’s just been a great ride. It’s been filled with some ups and downs, like everybody goes through, but I really feel like I’m working in my unique ability and helping04:09 – 04:10Shannyn Lee: people.04:11 – 04:26Rochelle Moulton: And I just love the trajectory of this because it’s, you know, big corporate and then you start to find your way. And then you just find that place where I call it your genius zone, where you’re firing on all cylinders and doing the work that you were meant to do.04:27 – 04:37Shannyn Lee: Yeah. And it feels good to Allow yourself permission to find that and then find the right company that sees that. And man, it’s just unstoppable if you can get there.04:37 – 04:39Rochelle Moulton: Yes, when you get there.04:39 – 04:41Shannyn Lee: When you get there. Not if, you’re right.04:43 – 05:01Rochelle Moulton: So Shannon, there are a few things about selling that I’d really like to 0 in on. So I guess the thing I’d kind of like to start with is why do so many of us have such a hard time selling ourselves? I mean, because as soloists, that is what we do. I mean, we’re mostly selling our expertise and ourselves.05:02 – 05:39Shannyn Lee: Yeah. A couple things come to mind for me. The first is, I think, so many of us equate selling with something icky and pushy and feeling like we were being duped, right? Like being convinced of something. And so I think that’s the first thing is people’s baggage or perceptions that they bring to selling service roadblocks. The other piece of it is, I think a lot of times people struggle with how to communicate who they help and how and what the value is they think they can create for that client. And I’m talking about positioning there and05:39 – 05:49Shannyn Lee: you know very well how important that is. So I think those things combined oftentimes crash and people just can’t overcome them. And that’s where the hangups can be.05:50 – 05:56Rochelle Moulton: Do you think as women, do we have a harder time with this than men do just on average?05:57 – 06:14Shannyn Lee: Yeah. And I wish the answer was no, but I think it’s, I know it is completely possible to overcome and be quite effective and quite helpful as a woman in the sales environment. I think there’s some additional things we have to overcome as women for sure.06:14 – 06:43Rochelle Moulton: You know, it’s interesting because I thought 1 of my superpowers back when I was in a big firm was that I was empathetic and I would listen because I didn’t think of myself as a power seller, which sometimes people would look at it that way. And I found that leaning into my natural personality, which wasn’t soft, but wasn’t hard either, it felt like I was bucking the system, but it worked for me.06:43 – 07:22Shannyn Lee: Yes. And so What I love about that is you were uniquely okay with being you and not trying to step into a role or turning into a sales robot because you felt there was some way that this had to be done. But you let that true you come out and use those strengths and superpowers to help you guide those conversations. And selling should come from a place of empathy. Selling should be about having conversations and uncovering, can I help? And there are vulnerable moments on either side of the equation, and you should be yourself and figure07:22 – 07:31Shannyn Lee: out what is it about you that really matters in those conversations so that that person across the table can see you in a true manner.07:31 – 07:51Rochelle Moulton: I love that. Well, and the irony, feel free to tell me if you disagree, but the irony strikes me that it’s actually easier to do that as a soloist than it is inside an organization where there is a model for how to sell versus you create your own around your unique strengths and your vision for the work you’re doing?07:51 – 08:17Shannyn Lee: Yeah, I agree. And I would think so. And I think that the soloists that I’ve worked with at Win Without Pitching eventually get there once they’re given permission. And I think a lot of times the soloist entrepreneur has a lot of pressure on them because they have to play every role in their business. And that can be where things get challenging and where things might feel harder than they need to.08:18 – 08:48Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. 1 man band or 1 woman band in this case. Right. So let’s meander over into this idea of how we can do a better job talking about money, about our fees, like giving a big ass number to something and not choking when you’ve said it. I’ve done that a couple of times. It seems like we spend a lot of time getting in our own way around these fee conversations. What do you think about all this?08:48 – 09:22Shannyn Lee: Well, I think it starts with understanding your motivators that cause you to do those things in the sale, like the inability to talk about money. Why is it hard for you? I think you have to examine those motivators. And those motivators could be things like you have a high affiliation score, which means you have the need to be liked and you have the need to create comfort and make things easy for people in these conversations. So you seek to kind of ease the tension versus bring a healthy tension to these sales conversations. So I think once09:22 – 09:41Shannyn Lee: you can identify like, what are my motivators? Why does it feel uncomfortable to talk about money and name it and explore it? And then frankly, like flick it off into the universe and get yourself in the right mindset. That’s the beginning to this journey of gaining confidence around talking about money.09:41 – 09:49Rochelle Moulton: Well, talk some more about healthy tension. I totally agree with that. I can feel it in a meeting. You can describe what that looks like for people.09:49 – 10:26Shannyn Lee: Yeah, what that looks like, for example, in an initial sales conversation that we call the qualifying conversation, just like many do out there, is your ability to demonstrate some selectivity. You should be equally as selective as that person looking to hire you is when they’re assessing the right fit. And so when you get into a sales conversation, you should feel very empowered to take charge from the get-go and let that person know, hey, I also have a process when it comes to deciding who’s a good fit for me and my expertise. And so I’m gonna ask10:26 – 10:56Shannyn Lee: you a bunch of questions on this call to assess, is there a fit? And if we decide, yeah, at the end, this makes sense, then we’ll keep talking and we’ll schedule the next conversation, which will be largely around what’s the value that we think we can create for your organization working together. We’ll identify metrics. What’s happening is here is from the beginning, you’re taking control of that conversation and letting that person know, hey, I’m checking you out just as much as you’re checking me out because I’m most interested in seeing if I can help you. And10:56 – 10:59Shannyn Lee: if I can’t, I’m going to be really honest and let you know upfront.11:00 – 11:36Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, taking the reins from the very beginning. And I think it’s not always natural when somebody first starts a solo business because usually they’ve come from being an employee somewhere else. And this idea that you have a process, not just of who you’re going to work with, but how you’re going to work. Just taking the reins from the beginning while still engaging the client and getting them to talk about their challenges and their environment, all of those. It feels like those are confidence builders. I almost felt myself sit up straighter as I thought about handling a11:36 – 11:37Rochelle Moulton: meeting that way.11:37 – 12:07Shannyn Lee: Well, and I know I sit up straighter when I handle my sales calls that way, because you’re right, I feel confident. And part of why I feel confident is because I have frameworks to follow that tell me what I need to do in each conversation throughout the buyer’s journey. So I’m organized and I’m clear and I don’t feel like I’m making it up each time I have a new sales conversation. So that’s the other piece of it is adopting some selling frameworks for yourself to get yourself organized around this journey you’re about to go through as12:07 – 12:11Shannyn Lee: you’re working with a potential buyer to decide if, you know, you’re gonna do this together or not.12:11 – 12:24Rochelle Moulton: Well, let’s dig into that. That’s just too juicy to ignore. So when you say selling frameworks, it sounded like you were talking about the conversation. So we’re talking about the conversations versus the process, the entire sales process.12:25 – 12:58Shannyn Lee: Yeah. So we think about things in terms of the buyer’s journey and What are the things that need to get done during the buyer’s journey to help decide are they a fit, should we work together? And so for us, it starts with this idea of what we call the probative conversation, which is this is positioning, essentially. This is there through your thought leadership or through referrals, people are hearing about you. You aren’t necessarily present. They’re forming an opinion about you, maybe stuff you’re posting on LinkedIn, and they see you as an expert. And they raise their12:58 – 13:37Shannyn Lee: hand and say, I want some help. And then the first kind of in-person or via Zoom conversation happens where you qualify. That’s the next framework is the qualifying framework, vetting to see if an opportunity exists if the fit is good. If it is, you proceed to what we call the value conversation. And the value conversation is all about bringing transparency to metrics, measurements, needs, but more importantly wants, like what’s the future vision? How do we get there? What do we think we can be accountable for as the solopreneur to contribute to that vision? What do we13:37 – 14:13Shannyn Lee: think together a fair range of investment is to get this work done? And okay, now you’re collecting all this information. And that means you can then go away and create a proposal. And in When Without Pitching Land, we like a 1 page 3 option proposal. We don’t want a big long daunting document. We want 3 high level ideas for different ways you can work together within a budget range that was agreed upon. And then you come into a closing meeting, but it’s more about facilitating a choice and really saying, okay, we’ve arrived at this place where14:13 – 14:34Shannyn Lee: we know enough about each other and enough about the project and enough about what the right investment is that it’s time to decide. I’ve got 3 options, which 1 makes the most sense for you. So it’s following these frameworks, these 4 conversations to help guide this journey and be effective, but be efficient. So it’s not a long drawn out sales process.14:35 – 14:51Rochelle Moulton: You know, 1 of the things I love about the way you just framed that is the value conversation. And I have the advantage of having heard Blair just talk about this in the last month. It sounds way less intimidating, the way that you just described it than I think people think about it.14:51 – 15:23Shannyn Lee: Yeah, I think what it really brings is integrity and transparency, honestly, because you’re demystifying how you price things. You’re putting it all on the table for the client to say, these are the things that need to be true at the end of our engagement. These are the metrics that matter to me most. And you’re sitting across the table saying, these are things I feel like I can hit. I’m going to think about solutions to do that. This is what I think the value is that can be...

When speaking about positioning at a conference for creative business owners, a soloist approached me. After pivoting from a multi-employee business during the pandemic, she was pleasantly surprised at how much more she was earning solo.Our conversation inspired me to record this episode to share what is possible for soloists—and we’re not talking unicorns:The journey from something that looks suspiciously like freelancing to employing leverage in your business.The three types of leverage most soloists use to evolve their business.The pros and cons of using different types of leverage in a soloist business model.Why you want to be delivering high value transformations to maximize your earnings without working more hours.LINKSRochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramBOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLERESOURCES FOR SOLOISTS10 Ways To Grow Revenue As A Soloist (Without Working More Hours): most of us have been conditioned to work more when we want to grow revenue—but what if we just worked differently?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 - 00:44Rochelle Moulton: If you are setting, say, a 2 times rate on your contractor, so they charge you $25, 000, you bill them out to the client at $50, 000, then you're making 100% gross markup. Now I know that sounds like a lot, but remember, you're typically paying them some upfront before your client pays, so you have cash flow risk. You also have to spend coordination time and you're still doing all the usual client-facing activities including billing and collections And you're on the hook in every way, including legally, for the satisfactory performance of the work. Hello, hello. Welcome to00:44 - 01:21Rochelle Moulton: Soloist Women, where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton, and today I'm sharing a short solo episode on a topic near and dear to many of us. How much money can you actually make as a soloist? Now, I recently spoke about positioning at David C. Baker's MYOB conference for creative business owners, where a soloist approached me when I finished. And it turns out she'd had a multi-employee business for many years, but the pandemic brought their client work to a halt. So she pivoted to a soloist model and now brings in01:21 - 01:59Rochelle Moulton: contract help only when she needs it. And she said something like, I've never had more money in my bank account or felt freer in my life. And I was thinking, amen sister, the soloist way. She seemed pleasantly surprised that such a simple pivot could bring more money, more free time, and more joy, which is why I wanted to record this episode on a related question I get asked a lot. How much money should I be making and how much money can I make with my expertise? Let's agree to just tossed should off the table. I don't01:59 - 02:38Rochelle Moulton: believe in shoulds, But I would like you to know what's possible. Not unicorns, but the kind of business models that actually exist out in the real world. Most of us start with something that looks suspiciously like freelancing, right? You start out charging an hourly, daily, weekly, or even fractional rate. And if you do well, you eventually hit against a revenue ceiling, often somewhere between about $100, 000 up to roughly $250, 000, depending on how expensive a problem you're solving. And you suddenly realize that the only way to make more money under your current business model is02:38 - 03:19Rochelle Moulton: to work more hours. And you just can't, or you don't want to. And that's when the great experiment begins. You start to explore how to use leverage. Your central question becomes, how can I earn more without working more hours? Well, here's 1 way to think about it. You can create a soloist business with any combination of 3 kinds of leverage, pricing, people, and product. Pricing leverage is when you set your prices so they are unlinked to your time. They'll usually be based at least partly on value, but not always, And this allows you to charge way03:19 - 03:58Rochelle Moulton: more than a set rate for your time. People leverage is when you hire people on a contract basis, assuming you're a soloist, to do client work. You make money on the spread between what you pay them and what you charge the client. And product leverage is when you develop products like books, courses, and even memberships that allow you to charge flat fees for a concentrated investment of your time and then you make money on Volume I think most people assume that you have to have people or product leverage to break the upper revenue Echelons. Well, I'm03:58 - 04:39Rochelle Moulton: here to tell you that you don't right? I've worked with soloist clients whose only leverage was pricing. They solve big, expensive problems for a very specific client niche, and they passed a million dollars in revenue. Soloist business. No employees, no products, but an outsized reputation in a very slim but rich niche. And as you know, if you're already a soloist, you take home a huge chunk of your top line revenue when you're not paying employees and maintaining a product structure. Now, if you add just a book, an authority book, to that mix, it gets even better.04:39 - 05:19Rochelle Moulton: Your book can act as a moneymaker on its own. I've worked with a handful of clients who managed out-sized book profits. But more often, it's a driver of revenue rather than a producer of it. So you publish a book, a tightly branded 100% on point book sharing your expertise. You promote it to your list on social media, you pitch yourself on podcasts, and word grows. Maybe you speak at conferences, word spreads still more, and that book becomes an entrée, sometimes the entrée, to your pipeline. Maybe you make a few thousand a year on the book, but05:19 - 05:59Rochelle Moulton: it drives hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue. 1 client writes a book about every 5 years, and while they sell anywhere from 50, 000 to 150, 000 copies over those 5 years, which by the way, is still a nice chunk of change. The real money is in their high-end consulting gigs, about $500, 000 a year, and speaking fees, 250, 000 or more in non-pandemic years. Now, before we talk about other types of leverage, I do want to point out something about only using pricing leverage. This model is still dependent on your producing value directly for05:59 - 06:38Rochelle Moulton: your clients. It typically doesn't produce a business that you can sell and should you get sick or want to retire permanently from it, the spigot shuts off. So you want to have solid and expensive, unfortunately, disability insurance and sock away a good chunk of your profit every year. And by the way, Sallowis have lots of options for tax advantage savings. So you want to sock away a good chunk to preserve your options. Now people leverage can also be profound, although not without its challenges. In fact, my very first business leveraged people, employees and contractors, and I06:38 - 07:21Rochelle Moulton: was able to sell it to Arthur Andersen for a very nice premium that more than made up for the occasional lean year. Now, as a soloist, you can hire contractors as versions of yourself, mini-mes, right, to complete client work or you can hire people with related skill sets so that you can complete more complex work that you could not do by yourself. So this requires comfort with selling, with pricing work that other people will deliver, and leading your team. You will sometimes have to have difficult conversations and find yourself either thrilled or horrified with the actions07:21 - 07:56Rochelle Moulton: of your people. But if you choose your talent well, you have a consistent selling machine and a process to get the work done well, you can do quite well financially. So let me give you an example. If you are setting, say, a 2 times rate on your contractor, so they charge you $25, 000, you bill them out to the client at $50, 000, then you're making 100% gross markup. Now I know that sounds like a lot, but remember you're typically paying them some upfront before your client pays, so you have cash flow risk. You also have07:56 - 08:36Rochelle Moulton: to spend coordination time and you're still doing all the usual client-facing activities including billing and collections, and you're on the hook in every way, including legally, for the satisfactory performance of the work. If they quit midstream, guess whose problem that is. When I owned a boutique firm, I marked up rates 2 to 3 times what I paid the consultant depending on my prior experience with them, the specific skill set they had, the rarity or lack thereof, and the personality of the lead client. So more recently, 1 of my clients, he does a little bit of what08:36 - 09:13Rochelle Moulton: I think of as reverse engineering. He sells the project himself. He has a very high end reputation with his ideal clients. He scopes it out and he negotiates a usually value-based price tag. So he then takes that scoped project to a member of his extensive team of contractors, and he asks them their price to do the work as its outline. And inevitably, I know this won't surprise you, there was a significant difference between those 2, between the price he got with the client and the price that the consultant delivered. The contractor would often base their price09:13 - 09:49Rochelle Moulton: on their expected hours for the project, and they'd come in sometimes even comically low. I mean, sometimes the client had them redo their bid to be more generous to the contractor and the client would then mark up their price by a factor of 4 or 5, sometimes even more. I'm guessing it won't surprise you that this consultant's gross after paying his contractors was well in excess of a million dollars a million dollars a year. It came with some risk, I mean certainly more than a solo practice, but it was a fairly low and pretty manageable risk,09:49 - 10:33Rochelle Moulton: especially since he had a slew of pre-qualified contractors ready to step in if somebody dropped out. Now product leverage is another area that some soloists consider the holy grail. And it can be, although you usually will need a pretty significant audience size, an email list, to make significant revenue from products. The exception, productized services where you're selling some sort of assessment or strategy session to deep-pocketed buyers. Those can be a six-figure-plus revenue stream just by themselves, even with a small list. And when I say a small list, like under $500. So products can be books, courses,10:33 - 11:17Rochelle Moulton: memberships, anything you essentially create and then, at least in theory, put on autopilot. So selling $39 ebooks is a very slow roll. But selling, say, $7, 500 memberships can move your revenue line north pretty quickly if you've identified the right niche, offer, price, and compelling branding and messaging. How much can you gross? A lot. You just have to work through the challenges of scaling and you might wind up wanting an employee or 2. I've seen gross revenues as high as 6000000 to just under 10 million, but each of those had significant contractor and technology expenses, not11:17 - 12:02Rochelle Moulton: to mention running a constantly moving business. They were working serious entrepreneur hours. What I see more often in my practice is soloists adding a product or 2 in experimental mode, small at first and then expanding as their audience grows if they find they're suited to it because not everybody is and Some wind up splitting the difference between products and services to build productized services selling them to high-end corporate or business organizations So all of this is a detailed way to say this. With the right niche, making high value transformations and a working authority machine, you can12:02 - 12:45Rochelle Moulton: make mid 6 figures, 500 to 600 thousand dollars, pretty consistently without working a traditional full-time schedule. And you have the opportunity to make far more if you're motivated to do that. Not everyone is. So if you're still working on your business model and you know let's face it aren't we all, take heart. All right there is a way for you to build a joyful, sustainably, highly profitable, soloist business with your expertise. You just have to keep experimenting to find your sweet spot. Okay, so that's it for this episode. I hope you'll join us next time for12:45 - 12:46Rochelle Moulton: soloist women. Bye bye.

You're an expert at one thing that you know the market needs, but you’re feeling tugged to do something else—something that just might be in your genius zone. Do you go for it? Communication maven turned agency matchmaker Rachel Huff did—and she shares her experience.We discuss:The challenges of starting a new business on the cusp of a global pandemic (with two tiny children and no day care).Generating the courage to pivot from what you’re very good at to your genius zone.The importance of building a new pipeline after a pivot—and allowing enough time for it to jell.Giving yourself permission to lean into your genius—even when other “experts” try to change your mind. Why creating and sharing your point of view is so critical for soloists.LINKSRachel Huff | Website | LinkedIn | Rosie’s Place  Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramGUEST BIORachel Huff, President and Founder of Victoire & Co, sits at the intersection of great companies and great agencies. Her passion lies in building brand-agency partnerships that drive long-term success.With a keen understanding of clients’ communications and business needs and a network of trusted agency connections, she specializes in guiding companies toward their best agency fit.Rachel previously led business development and agency marketing at Weber Shandwick and 360PR+ and has consulted for agencies of all sizes, drawing from a decade on the account side developing integrated communications campaigns for brands including John Hancock, Verizon, Ocean Spray, DraftKings, CVS and Life is Good.Rachel extends her professional expertise through her nonprofit involvement. She serves on both the Board of Directors and the Marketing & Development Committee for Rosie’s Place, the nation’s first women’s shelter and a sanctuary for poor and homeless women.BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLERESOURCES FOR SOLOISTS10 Ways To Grow Revenue As A Soloist (Without Working More Hours): most of us have been conditioned to work more when we want to grow revenue—but what if we just worked differently?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 - 00:28Rachel Huff: When I started off on my own, I actually always did have this idea in mind of being an agency search consultant and that that was somewhere that I wanted to get 1 day in like 5 years or so. But I was so used to doing certain work and I was, I just sort of had, I don't want to say pigeon-holed myself, but maybe. And I think, I just think it's really important. It's something that I learned. And I think this was part of my making that pivot was just because somebody didn't listen to your expertise in00:28 - 00:34Rachel Huff: the past, or just because somebody didn't necessarily empower you to be an expert on something, it doesn't make it true.00:39 - 01:07Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to Soloist Women, where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton, and today I'm here with Rachel Huff, who serves as a matchmaker for brands and agencies through her firm Victoire & Company. And her background includes over a decade inside an agency developing integrated communication campaigns for brands like John Hancock, Verizon, Ocean Spray, and CVS. Rachel, welcome.01:08 - 01:10Rachel Huff: Thank you so much for having01:10 - 01:38Rochelle Moulton: me, Rochelle. Well, 1 of the reasons that I asked you to join me is that you started your business right smack dab at the beginning of a pandemic with 2 tiny children. But, but I'm also planning on picking your brain for an idea or 2 on PR and thought leadership for soloists. So let's dive in. I guess let's start with what made you decide to start your business. Maybe you could set the stage for your first few days and weeks as a soloist.01:39 - 02:09Rachel Huff: Absolutely. Yeah, as you alluded, I spent my really whole career in agencies working on communications campaigns and my last few years in the agency world, I had transitioned into a business development and marketing role. So I was really responsible for helping the agency that I was working at to bring in and onboard their new clients. And I had this idea that had been sort of percolating, you know, I had kind of always had it in the back of my mind about going out on my own and continuing to do that work, which I really did enjoy02:09 - 02:36Rachel Huff: that work, but to continue doing that for a number of different agency clients. So either agencies who were smaller size, who didn't necessarily have their own dedicated business development person or, you know, sometimes midsize or even larger agencies who just needed a little bit of outside perspective and help to really help those agencies with their marketing and growing their business. So that was really what the idea was when I went out on my own in March 2020. I had set the ball in motion.02:37 - 02:40Rochelle Moulton: Let's stop there for just a second. March 2020.02:41 - 03:14Rachel Huff: Yeah, I had really good timing. Impeccable. I had kind of like set this ball in motion already to leave this, you know, the so-called real job and start my own consultancy. But yeah, then this little thing called COVID happened, worldwide pandemic. And yeah, my 2 kids were at the time 6 months old and 3 years old. And suddenly we no longer had full-time childcare for them. So yeah, this vision that I had for launching my own consultancy, it definitely was a little different from what I had initially anticipated. But I did pretty quickly start to take03:14 - 03:29Rachel Huff: on new clients and work. It just for that first year, really a little more than a year, it really was my workday consisted of really nap time and nighttime after the kids went to bed. So yeah, a little different from how I thought it would have gone.03:30 - 03:38Rochelle Moulton: So given that and you're trying to squeeze this in between nap times, how long did it take you to hit your first 100, 000?03:39 - 04:09Rachel Huff: So that first year was, like I said, it was like part-time, part-time, right? And then it took me about a year to really officially then I said, you know, I'm really committed to doing this. My, my kids were now in full time childcare. So I established my LLC. I launched Victoire and co in 2021, you know, officially now had my own business and felt a little more real. And then really in that second year, it took me, it took me that second year to hit a 100 K Mark. And it was interesting because even then I04:09 - 04:30Rachel Huff: was still part time. I still wasn't working full time. And I had this, I guess I had a moment of shock when I was crunching the numbers after 2 years in business and I realized I had made as much money working part time and doing this for myself as I had made in a full time salary job before that. So that was really exciting for me. So yeah, yeah.04:31 - 04:41Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, that transition. I mean, that moment when you really realize, oh, I can make money at this. And when you realize that you can make more and work less.04:42 - 04:44Rachel Huff: It's wonderful. It's freeing.04:44 - 04:56Rochelle Moulton: Exactly. So what's your viewpoint on hiring employees or contractors inside your firm? Like, do you have a point of view about that or have you kind of moved off employees, no employees?04:56 - 05:25Rachel Huff: Yeah, I've had some subcontractors on like project basis, but it's really interesting because I have a friend who owns her own agency. And I feel like every time I talk to her, she's like, just wait by the next time we talk, you're going to have your own employees are going to start growing soon. I'm always like, oh, no, no, no, thank you. That's actually I really enjoyed listening to your podcast and how some of your guests are like, no, I know that I'm a soloist. I'm fine with that. I'm cool with this. So that's really how05:25 - 05:45Rachel Huff: I feel. I mean, I never say never, but for me, it is very freeing not having the responsibility of mentoring people, coaching people that need to really always keep them busy, you know, make sure I can deliver a paycheck to them. It's really I really like having accountability to myself and only myself. That's part of why I'm doing this.05:45 - 06:09Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. And isn't it funny how the outside world just puts that expectation on us? Oh, you're going to get employees. You're going to be fabulous. It's like, well, I'm already fabulous. It's kind of your response, right? I love working this way. But yeah, it takes a little getting used to, to being counter the prevailing quote unquote wisdom, right, of starting your own business.06:09 - 06:23Rachel Huff: Yes. But yes, I've been very happy being a soloist. I loved working on big teams. I used to work on big teams. I used to mentor people and manage people, but I'm pretty happy working on my own and I still get to work with great people, just not within my own business.06:23 - 06:35Rochelle Moulton: Yes, exactly. So how did you land on your current specialty where you're basically matchmaking brands with agencies, agencies with brands? How did you get there?06:35 - 07:03Rachel Huff: I sort of took this parallel path. So when I started, I was really focused on consulting for agencies. And then I would get requests from time to time for people I had worked with in the past who are now in-house and needed help with running a search because you know They they were now in-house and needed help getting an agency and didn't even know how that process necessarily worked so I it started as me just sort of helping a few folks and then had a number of these searches under my belt and continued down that path.07:03 - 07:34Rachel Huff: So I had these parallel paths where I was doing the agency consulting and then helping companies run their agency searches. And I really just enjoyed that work so much. I don't know if I wanna say so much more, but I felt like that's really where my expertise, like I could really shine in my expertise and take all of my knowledge from having been agency side and bring that to in-house teams and helping them find the right agency partners for whatever their needs were. So I did make the decision at the end of last year, so the07:34 - 08:01Rachel Huff: end of 2022, to pivot with my consultancy and really double down there. I just felt like I, it almost was a little bit like the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day, where I just was like doing the same work over and over. I've been doing it for so long with the agency, you know, the agency side work. And I knew how to do it. I was really good at it. I was helping people with it. But I was just running into the same things over and over. And I really am enjoying this new avenue for my business.08:02 - 08:13Rochelle Moulton: Well, it's I don't want to put words on your in your mouth, but it almost sounds like you went from your zone of excellence to your zone of genius, like that there is a line that you crossed. Somehow.08:13 - 08:40Rachel Huff: Yes, completely. That's exactly right. It's my zone of genius. And then it's also, it's work that just really energizes me. And it's very intentional. And I've really enjoyed doing that. And I think 1 of the challenges that I found, I'll be, I'll be transparent about this. 1 of the challenges that I found in making that transition was that the agency work that I was doing was either in some cases retainer based work or a lot of recurring project work where I do a project for a client and then it would lead to another project and then08:40 - 09:09Rachel Huff: it would lead to another project. So it was a lot of that. This work isn't necessarily like that because if I run a search for a company to help them find a external marketing or communications partner. I set them up with a great agency, and then in some cases they're done with me. Obviously bigger companies have a number of agencies that they work with, so I have done some recurring searches for companies, But it is definitely a different model. And so, and it requires like a really pretty steady pipeline and a constant pipeline. So the first09:09 - 09:26Rachel Huff: half of 2023 was a bit slow for me as a result of making that pivot. And I just spent a lot of time marketing myself, networking, really putting myself out there and it's definitely been paying off. I would say the second half of this year has been, I quickly ramped up and it's been very busy09:26 - 09:55Rochelle Moulton: again. Well, it's funny you mentioned pipeline because that's the first thing I was thinking when you said, oh yeah, I have a client once, right. And then we're done until they need another search. And hopefully, if you've done your work, well, they don't need another search. Yeah, for quite a while. Yeah. So how long did it take you to really get traction? I mean, I know you said 6 months, like, what was that like? Because what you did is you faced the fear that a lot of us have when we do a pivot. Yeah. There's still09:55 - 10:07Rochelle Moulton: people that you know, but the way that you work is changing and the way that you market and sell yourself is changing and the way you set up your pipeline is changing. So I just, I would love you to walk us through a little bit of that.10:07 - 10:32Rachel Huff: Yeah, that's true. You know, it's funny because when I first started out on my own in again, March, 2020, I had a friend and a mentor who had said to me, you know, really prepare yourself. It's going to be like 6 months for you to ramp up. It's going to take a while for you to really get to a place where you have the steady stream of work. And I think part of it honestly might've been the fact that I, like I said, I only had so much time in the day that I could work. But10:32 - 11:02Rachel Huff: I think part of it was also that I did, I do have a really pretty incredible network and pretty large network. I think part of that is just the nature of the agency world. You have fantastic, people don't stay in agencies or in any specific agency for very long. So a lot of wonderful people who I worked with either as my colleagues or as past clients had ended up in a lot of really interesting places. So I was fortunate to get a really steady stream of work from the very beginning and kind of thought that was11:02 - 11:32Rachel Huff: going to be like continue for eternity. But it's funny because it then ended up happening, right? When I finally made this pivot at the beginning of this year, those first 6 months of the year were pretty quiet. And that was a little scary. But I think what was interesting about it was it's not like I was sitting there twiddling my thumbs I was working a lot and I think this is something that happens a lot as soloists we do a lot of unpaid work marketing ourselves networking And obviously we have to factor that in when we're11:32 - 12:00Rachel Huff: thinking about our time. But I felt like there were a few months there where I was like, I'm working so hard, I have nothing to show for it. Like I don't have a paycheck that you have when you're in a salary position, that's like constant regular paycheck. But I just kept at it and I had a lot of meaningful conversations. I think part of it You know, the economy has been kind of tougher just weird the past year or so No people a lot of stops and starts right people who were excited to work with me12:00 - 12:13Rachel Huff: and then oh, sorry Like our budget isn't approved Not sure not sure if we're going to make an agency change and we need your help with that or not. But it all ended up, you know, a lot of great work has come. As a result, it just, you know, I just had to be patient, but it has paid off.12:13 - 12:47Rochelle Moulton: I think you're being modest because, yeah, you had to be patient, but you were also working your system. And I love how you describe the agency world where people are constantly moving, but you stayed in touch with them. Not everybody does. I think that's, that's this key. And when you start a business like ours, if you've got this existing network of people, and I mean network in the best possible way, right? People you actually know and where you appreciate each other. It's an asset that you take into the business. And I think it helps you get12:47 - 12:50Rochelle Moulton: off the ground a lot faster than if you didn't have that.12:50 - 13:20Rachel Huff: Absolutely, yeah. A lot of the people who I've worked with, again, as a client, as a colleague, bosses of mine, people who reported to me, I feel like when we do interact with each other, even if it's been 10 years, we just immediately have that connection and trust, like inherent trust in the way that we work. So I've had a lot of people, a lot of my clients, pretty much most of my clients have been former, people I've worked with in some capacity in a past life and just like inherently trust the quality of the work13:20 - 13:23Rachel Huff: that I do because they are part of that network.13:24 - 13:46Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, that reputation value from actual experience with you is huge. You know, when We talked offline, you had mentioned a scenario, and I'm trying to remember if it was before you made the pivot into what we might

How can we do more of what we and our clients and buyers value—and less (or better yet, none) of what we don’t? That’s the focal point of essentialist thinker Katie Burkhart’s mission to evolve the way we work. We explore:The question to ask yourself before saying yes (and the freedom you give yourself when saying no). Why work life balance is a myth when what we really want is to integrate the two.How we have changed our collective view of what work really means (even if not everyone has caught up yet).Why making an impact is “the caboose” behind providing value to your clients and buyers.How to think about relationships without converting them to currency.LINKSKatie Burkhart | Website | Substack | LinkedIn | EntrepreneurRochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramGUEST BIOKatie Burkhart is the mastermind behind MatterLogicW, the only system for running a business in the value economy. An essentialist thinker, Entrepreneur contributor, thoughtful speaker, and jargon slayer, she shifts your focus by asking “What’s the point?” For more of her thinking, connect with her on LinkedIn and subscribe to WTP.BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLERESOURCES FOR SOLOISTS10 Ways To Grow Revenue As A Soloist (Without Working More Hours): most of us have been conditioned to work more when we want to grow revenue—but what if we just worked differently?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 - 00:33Katie Burkhart: I'm a big believer that you need your core, which has 5 pieces, purpose, vision, outcomes, mission, and values, because we need to know what that core is so that we can make choices based upon it. That's what constitutes a strategy. And when you think about impact, right, Impact is the caboose that comes at the end. We need to deliver value and have value delivered successfully in order to hopefully make an impact. Impact is difficult to measure. It's difficult to put our hands around, but most of us, and it sounds like soloist women, are really looking to00:33 - 00:36Katie Burkhart: make that impact and I know a lot of the people I work with do too.00:41 - 01:07Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to Soloist Women where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton, and today I'm here with Katie Burkhardt, who is an essentialist thinker, entrepreneur contributor, thoughtful speaker, and my favorite, jargon slayer. She is also the mastermind behind MatterLogic, which is a system for running a business in the value economy. Katie, welcome.01:07 - 01:11Katie Burkhart: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.01:11 - 01:40Rochelle Moulton: Well, I'm excited to have you. So 1 of the reasons that I just had to have you on the show, is your focus on turning what's the point into this key question that we ask with our work, this idea that you can make saying no the way that we get more done and to make value our focus. And I know you normally work with teams inside organizations, but when we met, I was fascinated with how your principles apply to the soloist model. So I want to spend some time01:40 - 02:16Katie Burkhart: on that. 100%. You know, so I love getting to know you, you know, a little separately and then spend some time really digging into what a soloist is, which I think you've crystallized really well. And I think we assume work if businesses, big teams are doing it. Small teams may not be doing it, but the great thing about this is it applies to people as people. It applies to soloist businesses. It applies to small teams. It applies to big teams. And the way I want to chat about this is through a story. So I don't know02:16 - 02:41Katie Burkhart: if you ever did this as a kid, but my grandparents held an Easter egg hunt every Easter when we were really little. And they used to put a lot of time into putting like coins into some of the eggs and candy into some of the eggs. And you know, The Easter egg hunt was not really the thing. You could just go eat the candy later, but as a kid you didn't understand that. You were really excited for the Easter egg hunt. In my mind, there are 2 ways of doing the Easter egg hunt. The way most02:41 - 03:12Katie Burkhart: people do it, which is to take their bucket and as soon as the thing goes off run as hard and as fast as they can in all sorts of different directions. They're bumping into all the other kids. In some cases, they're smashing the eggs. They're trying to throw whatever they can into the basket. They're a hot, sweaty mess by the time they get to the end, and they have really variable results. The other way to go about doing it is to determine very specifically what value it is that you wanna deliver. What is it that you're03:12 - 03:43Katie Burkhart: really looking at? Set a specific focus and to be able to go out and assess the eggs that you're confronting and then put the ones that fit into your basket. At the end, you're gonna have a lot less eggs, most likely, but you are gonna be in a much stronger position because you're not exhausted, You're not hot and sweaty, you're not super distracted, and the eggs that are in your baskets are good ones. They're whole, they're not crushed, and they're what you really need to have to actually be able to get the job done and move03:43 - 04:09Katie Burkhart: forward. And that's the way I really like to look at this, is to really be able to say, what's the point? You know, what's the point of why my business exists, whether you're a soloist or a bigger team, you need to be able to answer that question. And in the value economy, it needs to be based on the value that you deliver to someone actual meaningful value. I'm the first to say that that comes in many different shapes and sizes. You know, you don't have to change the whole world. You do not have to save the04:09 - 04:44Katie Burkhart: whales, but you need to deliver value that you can articulate. And that means something to the person you deliver it to. Once you know that point, everything that you go through should have a point and should align with that fundamental point. And that's where that no piece comes in, right? This isn't about minimalist, you know, about, well, We just want to have less. That's true. But no is really a strategic tool to say these don't fit. This is aimless. This doesn't have a point or its point does not really fit with the strategy that we're here04:44 - 04:47Katie Burkhart: to advance. You know, we need to say no.04:47 - 05:07Rochelle Moulton: Well, I feel like you were watching me at my first Easter egg hunt. So there's that. And I was the first 1, not the second 1. Let's be clear. So Katie, what made you? I mean, you started your business. What made you start your business? And then did you immediately focus on this? I mean, did you land on this mission right away or was this a process?05:08 - 05:40Katie Burkhart: Oh, it was a process, mostly accidental. You know, when I started, my very first job was as a lifeguard And I worked at a pretty safe pool and spent a lot of time sitting on my chair staring at mostly empty pool water or the same 2 or 3 kids who came every day who we know were not going to drown. So you were pretty much there by yourself on this chair listening to the clock sort of tick by your life in 15-minute increments until you went to the next chair and you did it again. And what05:40 - 06:15Katie Burkhart: I walked away from that experience with was that was not how I wanted to spend my life. Time was far more value than that. And I think you and your soloist manifesto really recognize that true wealth isn't simply money. Time and the ability to have true time freedom is really where wealth comes in. And once I understood that that was particularly motivating to me, I both wanted to pick a career, something that utilized my skills and my interests, however broad that might be. And then, you know, flip side, how do I help other people kind of06:15 - 06:52Katie Burkhart: not waste their time, you know, and what it was that they were doing. And I started, as young people do, very focused on the first, and actually spent time as a designer and did work all over the place, in theater, in systems, in data, in anything where you wanted to design a broader system, I was willing to take it on and ended up backing into my first company, Matter 7, which still exists today, where we initially did branding and big brand systems, we have shifted over the years to being truly focused on where, non-surprisingly, our clients06:52 - 07:24Katie Burkhart: are looking for value, which is how they tell their story. And at this point, our storytelling studio, but that process led me to see how difficult it actually is for companies and bigger teams to be that second egg hunt team, to really have that level of discipline, to have structure and systems that allows them to do that and really set out to how do I build a methodology? How do I come up with approach? How do I create tools? How do I ultimately teach them, you know, how to go about doing that? So it was a07:24 - 07:35Katie Burkhart: little bit of a following where there was a need or where there seemed to be an ability to do something better and seeing if I couldn't find a way to do that. It's interesting the07:35 - 08:08Rochelle Moulton: way you described that you were focused on designing things, but you were spreading your efforts in a lot of different directions, which is something most soloists, myself included, can identify with, especially at the beginning of their journey. When you're figuring out in those first, typically 2 or 3 years, you're trying to figure out how to make your business model sustainable and have some consistent revenue. And so we take on some things that later we go, oh yeah, I wouldn't do that now. So let's just talk revenue for a moment and then I want to dive back08:08 - 08:13Rochelle Moulton: into your specialty. So do you remember how long it took you to hit your first 100, 000?08:15 - 08:43Katie Burkhart: Probably 2 years, although I'd have to really sit back and think about that. But I think it was 2 years with the first company. My second company, the company I spent most of my personal time with at this point, the Matterlogic company, we initially started as a technology company. So we sort of went into it knowing the first couple of years would be non-revenue generating. But when we shifted away from that and wanted to go out into market in a different capacity, that took me slightly more than a year to get us to our first 100,08:43 - 09:21Katie Burkhart: 000, which was exciting and very cool to do. But you made a point about when we first start, we kind of go out and take on whatever knocks. Especially as a soloist that kind of, and admittedly if you're a smaller team, It doesn't actually go away, it just looks different. That fear that like if I don't say yes to this project, there won't be another 1. 1 of the things I've learned is that there are many projects that cost more than they pay. And that strategic ability to say no, takes some exercising and takes some practice09:21 - 09:50Katie Burkhart: to learn when to say no. But as you're looking at clients and assessments, 1 way to always look at it is when it's early, we took a lot, you know, because I wasn't sure, you know, exactly where I wanted to land. I can't say I really set out to quote unquote make a business. But once I started to figure out, these are the types of people I like to work with, here's why. These are the types of clients that can afford to work with us so that we can do a really good job, here's why. You09:50 - 10:23Katie Burkhart: know, we could start to develop a better profile of mutual benefit where I'm excited and ultimately my team's excited to do the work and they're in a position to actually invest enough to get the value that they're looking for. So 100% trial and error starts, but it took me a little longer than I wish it would have to start saying, no, I'm sorry. You aren't really a good fit for us. And then to be able to take the time I would have spent on that project and invest it into another area of my business, which would10:23 - 10:32Katie Burkhart: help me get to that right fit client versus struggling with a client who wasn't right fit. I'm sorry, that was a tangent. No, that wasn't a tangent at all. In fact,10:32 - 11:02Rochelle Moulton: I was really struck by something you said that many projects cost more than they pay. And that is so true. And I think for soloists, especially because we're selling our expertise, right? We're not selling a widget. And so we're Hopefully we're not selling our time. Hopefully we're selling our expertise based on value, but a lot of times when solas first start, they're selling time. And it's easy to not think of your time as a cost until it starts to get ugly. And then, you know, the light bulb goes off.11:03 - 11:36Katie Burkhart: Oh, it's so time is my focus, you know, and starting to get people, even though I think there are some people who recoil and are like, that's so transactional, you know, our goal isn't to make it transactional, but to recognize that you can make more money, but you cannot make more time. So really thinking hard about, you know, what's the point of doing this and really making sure that that's going to be worth the time you exchange for it is a critically important question. And sometimes the answer is like the point of, in my case, watching11:36 - 12:02Katie Burkhart: the Karate Kid for the 87th time is because I like it and I'm going to find it relaxing and I'm good with that, but I asked the question, rather than doing it and then finding out later that this wasn't a good use of time. I think it's James Clear or someone else makes the statement that, or it's an adage, that every yes is a no to everything else you could have done with that time. So make sure that you're good with that.12:02 - 12:37Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, the yes is a critically important word. So 1 of the things that you talk and write about is the old assumptions about work that keep pulling us back from the brink of changing them. Will you talk some more about that? And I'm curious, especially in this soloist experience, because I found that a lot of soloists, when they're in like a big corporate environment and then they leave, they tend to strip away all of those must-dos, at least when they first start. But then some of those old habits kind of come slowly back into the business.12:38 - 12:59Katie Burkhart: Well, I know that you actually have full corporate experience. What was the phrase you used? Suit with the pearls? Sort of curious, before I answer your question, you know, what were the things that you were really walking away from specifically and are you finding that people are still walking away from those things or are they walking away from different things?13:00 - 13:34Rochelle Moulton: Oh, That's a good counter question. I was walking away from being told what to do by people who weren't good at what I did. And I kept feeling like my value system was bumping up against a corporate, and I say corporate, it was a big consulting firm, but against a system that didn't allow me enough flexibility to do what I thought was right for my clients and for the business. So it was mostly that, but yeah, I didn't really wear the pearls much after. But it was less about that because I have to be clear, I13:34 - 14:02Rochelle Moulton: really loved my work. I loved what I did. I really enjoyed most of the clients. I enjoyed a lot of my colleagues, but it was like time to do what I wanted to do. So it was those kinds of things. I don't think I was rebelling against a corporate structure so much as saying you are not gonna let me do what I want and I'm tired of you trying to put me in a box. So I'm gonna go build a new box and because my first thing wasn't as a soloist it was building a firm that14:02 - 14:35Rochelle Moulton: was run the way that I was envisioning a good, healthy firm would be run. But what I see a lot in terms of other women, and it's funny, I saw it back when I first did this and I see it now, is that a lot of women are saying, you know, I want a different kind of life. And it's probably not about whether they have to wear, you know, stockings, God forbid, or a suit, but it's about having time for the other things in their life. And a lot of times that's children or taking care of14:35 - 14:51Rochelle Moulton: elder family, but not always. A lot of times it's, you'd be surprised at how many people just have these other interests in their life and they're just kind of done donating or dedicating a good percentage of their life energy to somebody else's goals.14:52 - 15:26Katie Burkhart: Yeah, so I have so many ways to try to respond to that. I'm going to try to do this in a way that makes any sense, a little bit of sense at least, because you're hitting on a number of just really good points. And 1 of the things that I like to talk...