Your business needs change at every stage within your business. In today’s episode, Jessica Dornieden joins us to discuss the different stages of business and what you might need in your current stage! From outsourcing to the tech and tools you’re using, there are so many options and paths you can take for your business. Plus, we explore how you can use this knowledge to better serve your audience based on where they are in business!
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Guest Bio
Jess is a Tech Implementor and she helps entrepreneurs stuck in the “messy middle” by solving their tech challenges, so they can stop putting out dumpster fires and focus on bringing their ideas to life.
Today’s episode is brought to you by my Love Your Leads private audio training! Are you providing an experience for your leads that sets an expectation on when they’ll hear from you, provides them with tools that will help them easily say yes and book you, while also making them feel seen and heard? In my private audio training, you’ll learn how to love your leads and get more booked clients through an automated booking process.
Here are the highlights…
[1:26] Get to Know Jessica
[2:35] Services Based on the Stages of Businesses
[6:57] Defining Importance and Emergencies as a Business Owner
[8:50] Having a Helper vs. a Doer
[10:07] Knowing When to Hire & Who to Hire
[12:07] Meeting Your Audience Based on Where They are in Their Business
[14:59] Changing Your Business for Growth
[20:20] Jessica’s Current Service Model
[23:40] The Value of SOPs
[29:01] Looking to the Future
[33:00] Improving Offerings Based on Feedback
[36:40] Getting Scrappy
[39:23] Collecting The Right Data
[40:25] Asking “Why” The Right Way
[43:51] Gaining Experience
[46:45] Take What You Need
Connect with Jessica
Website: jessicadornieden.com
Instagram: instagram.com/jessicadornieden
Podcast: The Scrappy Business Podcast
Review the Transcript:
Colie: This might seem like a really basic idea, but at different stages of your business, your needs, whether they are the tech that you’re using, the people that you need to hire, those change. And so today we are going to talk about how to determine which stage of business you’re in and what it looks like to outsource and hire someone to help you depending on what stage of business you’re in.
Colie: Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Business First Creatives podcast. I am chatting today with my new friend, Jess, and I came up with the idea for today’s podcast topic, looking at her website. And so I’m going to let Jess introduce herself to you, and then we’re going to hop right in. Jess, I would say good morning, but it’s definitely not morning to you, podcast.
Jess: Thank you. Good afternoon. Back to the good morning. so yeah, I’m Jess. I am first and foremost kind of tech and systems implementer. And then I also co-own a podcast production agency with my partner, which is called Pristine Podcasts. So I’m kind of doing the A DHD thing of having multiple things on the go at the same time.
So I own that. But it is what it is. Yeah, I’ve been doing this since 2016 at this point. So it’s been a while. And yeah, I’m originally from Germany, lived in England for a long time now in Albania, so getting around the place a little bit, trying
to enjoy life and get some sunshine,
so
Colie: I definitely forget that you’re from Germany because when I hear you talk, all I hear is a British accent. And it might not even actually be a British accent, but to me, it’s a British accent.
Jess: It kind of sounds like it. I know it’s so weird. If you want to have a laugh, you go back on my Facebook page and find like videos from four years ago. And if you think I sound like I have an English accent now, listen to that. It’s awful. I found one of my old videos the other day, cause I wanted to repurpose it.
And I was like, I can’t
even listen to this. Like, this doesn’t sound like a me. So I kind of like
cringe. So yeah.
Colie: So Jess, let’s talk about your services tab on your website, because as we were saying before we hit record, I think I’m fascinated by the fact that when someone hits your services page, they are not presented with actual services. It’s like three buckets to where you self identify where your business is at.
And then when you schedule a consultation call, that’s when you can get into the nitty gritty. So. Tell me why and maybe what was the, what, what pushed you to have those three buckets on your services page instead of actually listing like specific services.
Jess: Yeah, so I’ve just found that as I’ve been growing, so we, we are all on journey. Right. So when I started out, I was like, okay, I seem to be good at this tech stuff. And this was actually, this came out by accident. I joined a group coaching program. That was like very low price, like seven years ago.
And then I knew that I wanted to do this online working thing because my background’s in early childhood. I used to run a daycare center, which is like. The funniest transition, but I joined this program because I thought, Hey, if I surround myself with people that are already doing it, then surely I will get some ideas for what are people doing, what’s needed and where do I fit.
So I was in the Facebook group and people kept going, Oh, my website is broken. Like, I’m not sure what to do. So I was like, Oh, that’s easy. You just go here. You press that. That happens all the time. You know, that’s how you fix it. And then the lady that was running it was like, by the way, do you realize you could get paid for this?
And I was like, no, I did not. So it only then occurred to me that this is a thing to do. And when I was starting out, I was working for other people that were also just starting out. Because that’s who you have the most connection with. So as I was speaking, I was mostly speaking to people that were kind of new at this.
And I was helping them a little bit. And the focus being on helping, I wasn’t getting results for them. I was helping because that was all I was capable of doing. And then as I became more experienced, I started working with business owners that are in that stage where you’re like heavily growing and the
shit just hits the fan.
I hope I’m, am I
okay
Colie: You are a girl. Yes.
Jess: Okay, so shit hits the fan every morning when you open, you know, Slack, it’s like, Oh my God, this broke. Oh my God, these people couldn’t, couldn’t buy it. These people didn’t get access to this. Like they want refunds, you know. And it becomes like very pressured.
And then when you start working with businesses that are way more established, it’s all about scaling. They don’t waste their time on stuff anymore. That doesn’t bring any results. They’re like, we know how to run ads. We are spending tens of thousands every single day on running ads. And this is all we do.
We don’t do content. We don’t do podcasts. We’re not going to start YouTube. We run. Ads. And that’s how we get customers end off. And it’s very different working with people that are a one person business owner versus a small team of like five people, and then going to the stage where there’s 20 people and nobody knows who’s doing what, because it’s that awkward stage on the way to bigger company where you have, you know, so much systems and ops issues to get into.
And they’re very different. And over seven years of working, as I was working with bigger, you know, more Businesses. I realized that my services don’t work for those kinds of businesses. My, like the language that I’m using to communicate things don’t work for that. They need entirely different tools set up that the basic tracking doesn’t help them because they’re spending a lot of money every single day.
So everything kind of has to upscale. As you go, and it is very different. I know it used to feel huge for me when I was like, Oh my God, I’m getting like 2000 a month.
Like I’ve quit my job. Like this is huge to
Colie: it.
Jess: Like, I’m like, I’m, I’m the shit. And then I realized I started working with people and they’re like, Oh, they make like 2000 every hour.
And it’s cool. If you don’t want to go there, it’s cool. If you want a lifestyle business, it’s cool. If you’re not after that, you can still be established and not aim for that. And just want your piece. That’s great too, but you still start thinking differently because you start valuing your time more.
You’re like, I’m going to cut this out. Like this doesn’t get me any results. I’m going to stop posting on Instagram because nobody cares about it. So I think as you grow and you mature as a business owner, the way you look at things changes. And that’s why I feel when I offer support to people. I am not going to go and change your button color 17 times unless you have data that implies that the button color needs to be changed because I know that this is a waste of your time and I’m just going to, I’m just going to say it now.
So, when I speak to new business owners. A lot of things are very different. Everything that doesn’t quite work the way it’s supposed to on the first try. It’s very dramatic. It’s the end of the world. I had to define what an emergency is on my little tech membership that I
have, because just because something isn’t working and you can’t finish setting it up today, I know that your time is precious and you have very little and you might still have the job on the side and it’s frustrating when it doesn’t work.
That’s still not an emergency. That is just an, okay, then we’ll set it up tomorrow and it goes live. Tomorrow, like it’s just not that dramatic, but it took me seeing dramatic issues. Like, then I understood, well, this gets really expensive really quickly when this breaks, this isn’t, I’m getting out of bed at 1am because my phone rang, because this is costing thousands with every minute this isn’t fixed.
So, I think that’s why I ended up splitting it up. And the other thing that I’m noticing is a lot of service providers, they are just helping, particularly in the ongoing front, like if you get assistance, tech support, you know, they are just helpers. And helpers are great, but at some point when you grow your business, you don’t want to help her because that’s like, it is the same thing as on everyone on TikTok being like, I have to carry the mental load because I always have to think of everything.
And then someone else comes and says, how can I help you with that? Just tell me what I need to do and I will help you. But it’s more of a
burden.
Colie: have to explain what kind of help I
need. You want
Jess: Exactly. Because you’re already overwhelmed. Yeah. And I feel like at some point you need somebody that watches what’s happening, reads the messages on Slack and goes. Okay, I see this is causing an issue with this thing here and this isn’t working. I went to fix it. You didn’t ask me to fix it, but this is obviously causing you a lot of stress.
So I just went and fixed it. Nobody asked me to do that. I’m just, I can see this isn’t working. I use a different tool. I signed up for this platform here. We’re moving this stuff here. And then you won’t have this issue again, that this connection between these two things breaks and doesn’t work. And that is very different to having.
a helper where you’re
like, should I do it like this? Or should I do it like that? Or should we do this? Or should we do that? And I think I don’t, I’m not really in a place anymore where I can offer the kind of helping services to people because I can’t not bring what I already know and watch you go to figure it out for potentially months on end while I know that you’re not going to get a return on your.
investment that you’re spending. Like, I don’t know, I have a thing about this advice of like, definitely your first hire should be an assistant. I’m like, I’m not sure. I don’t really think so. I would have thought that when I, when I was doing that work, I would have thought it’s like the most important thing to be doing, but now. I would say a lot of the clients that I initially worked with, they didn’t know what to use an assistant for. They were just like, you know, in the first month they have a lot of stuff that’s been left lying around. In the second month, they find some bits and bobs to kind of give to you because they’re paying for you.
Then month three to six, they have no more work because they don’t really need an assistant because it wasn’t really
that much. Work realistically once it’s streamlined and then that’s it like the retainer goes sour they complain I’m not getting any value out of this, but they never really send any work either They’re just kind of you know, it’s it’s a it’s an odd, you know, it’s not set up.
So Yeah, I just think that it it’s a growth thing and knowing
what you can bring and I think the investment the ROI on getting A tech person on your team when you sell three courses a
month.
Colie: isn’t a necessity.
Jess: No, no. And if you took that money and put it into ads and had proper tracking set up and understand how to run a split test, you would get way more. Yes. In month one, you’ll give the money to Facebook. No one’s going to buy shit. That’s fine. But you’re going to keep optimizing in month two. There’ll be some return on that if you keep at it, you know, every day you just go, you’re like, okay, this isn’t working.
I’ve watched this until we got to this number of people. Now I’m going to make a change. Oh, now it’s working a little bit. I’m going to keep at it. Even that would be a better investment than. Just giving it to someone else and trying to find
things to keep them busy, if
that
Colie: It does make sense. So Jess, I want to back up just a second. There’s a couple of different ideas that I’m hearing out of what you told me, because first you really need to think about what it is that you need when you look to hire someone, delegate, outsource any of those words, and that it’s different for those three stages.
I will say one of the reasons that I was absolutely fascinated by the way that you had the three buckets is. I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, but recently I have been like revamping my offers. And one of the reasons that I decided to make the template shop include some lower cost, easier to implement things was I kind of saw what you’re saying, but I didn’t quite say it that way.
I was giving the exact same systems. To everyone who hired me for a Dubsado VIP day, kind of regardless of where they were in their business. Like, I had some people who were six figures, had a, you know, an assistant or more than one team member. And granted, all of my systems were customized, but like, I wasn’t looking at what I wanted their business to do in the end.
Any differently than a beginning photographer that came to me. Like, I want you all to have systems in your Dubsado account that allow you to quickly, deal with your inquiries, send an offer and get them booked, onboard them into your process. But what I finally started to realize was that for some people, I felt like I was giving them systems that they weren’t ready for.
I feel like if I had just started with like one thing, if I just solve your booking problem, I will let you run away. You can use that booking until you get some more clients, you get used to your systems, and then when you’re ready to like implement the next stage, I will still be here for you. But I don’t want to overwhelm you by giving you the entire system that you will eventually need up front.
Because maybe you’re just not ready. For a full system in order to do everything that you need to do from when someone inquires with you to when you deliver an off board someone, it was just like an aha moment. And the sad thing is, I will admit this. I didn’t really come to this conclusion based on like anything that happened with any of my clients.
It was more about my capacity. My capacity to run my business has changed dramatically, due to, you know, life circumstance. And so I wasn’t going to be able to do full builds for people anymore. And it was like, well, if I’m not going to do a full build for them, what should I do? And then I started thinking about the fact, well, if I just set up your inquiry and your booking, you would get a lot of return on investment.
You wouldn’t constantly be inside of your emails, inside of your ddo, manually sending emails, creating proposals, you know, custom, like, but listening to you say it, Jess. I was just like, oh my God. I was even more brilliant than I thought.
Jess: It, it’s weird because we, we do so many things the same way for such a long time and it’s kind of working. So why change it? Right. Like, I mean, I, I had a similar realization on something different the other day, but I was like, Hourly based retainers are dumb and not like when I was starting, I was like, are we going to start out on hourly based retainers?
And then once you’re fully booked, you’re going to start selling your 10 K VIP package, whether there’s any ROI or not, like who gives a damn people just telling you, just sell 10 K packages to sell 10 K packages, you know? And I’m like, well, you know, if people are, you know, spending 10 K, they better be making a hundred back, you know, just so that they have something.
Uh, out of that investment that they made, but you can’t just go around telling people, we’ll just increase your price out of zero at the end. And I’m so like, I was sick of that. So when you’re doing hourly based retainers, you have option one, you build an agency. So I tried that. I was like, right, I’m fully booked.
Let me go hire some other people. Man, that was a headache. Like if you do it under your name, your name is on that. I’m not, you know, random assistant, uh, com, you know, I worked under my name, so I have to quality control that. I might’ve as well done things myself at that point because man, was it a headache to find the issues with someone else’s work?
Like if they’ve built complex automations, you know how long it takes to go look into that, find out which bit isn’t working and then start fixing things. So I tried that for a while. It made no financial sense whatsoever. And anyone that’s considering, you know, building an agency model of sorts, be prepared to charge massive prices and focus on clients that don’t care where the money is Um, they’re happy to just pay it. They, they just want to hand it off. Um, because otherwise you’re going to have no cash left over, like you’ll pay yourself and then you’re zero zero. That’s literally it. Um, so I tried that didn’t make any financial sense to continue that after like two years, it took me two years to understand that this wasn’t gonna financially.
Work, and then I thought, okay, well, I’ll just work, you know, with one off clients that have more complex needs and I’ll charge, you know, higher prices for my very complex services, which I did and, um, but then afterwards they’d always be like, okay, but how can you help me now? Because I’m not going to maintain that.
Like, I, I need you to be here. I need you to help me. So I’m like, yeah, that wasn’t part of my plan. My plan wasn’t to charge big prices and get a lot of, you know, clients booked for one off things and I’m like, okay, so this isn’t it. So I went back onto offering, retainers for the people who wanted to stay on after their.
After their projects, because I was like, well, you know, they do need the help. Like they actually have a lot of customers, you know, they make a lot of new offers, they test stuff, they need new pages built for split tests and stuff. So it made sense. And it literally, it’s taken me seven years to realize that hourly based retainers are never going to work.
Like if you look at someone’s business, the business might be growing at a consistent pace. But not every human that is working in that business works at the precisely same level of effort month on month on month. You have months where you’re launching something new. So you have your copywriters working hard because new copy is needed.
You have your tech people working hard because it has to be set up. But then the month after, after this is launched. You have the coach working hard delivering the coaching program or whoever is doing the thing and everyone else after they put in more hours, they end up putting in a bit less energy the month after and every single online business on this planet and a lot of other businesses are on the same pattern.
Like take this time of year, we had back to school. Now everyone and their auntie are putting out a program or a course or a product or
Colie: It’s lunch season. .
Mm-Hmm.
Jess: we’re going to hit, we’re going to hit black Friday. Guess what? There’s going to be offers galore. And then, you know, if you’re a product based business, you have Christmas sales.
And if you’re not product based, you know, you’re going to end up preparing for new year, new me, you know, come and buy my program in January. So all of my clients need more work. At the exact same times of the year. And they need less work the exact month thereafter. This is not sustainable. My time is not fluid.
It doesn’t expand to working 80 to a hundred hours a week, a week, which I have done before black Friday for like two, three weeks. And then it shrinks to me being in bed for like the next month, absolutely shattered. So I was like, this doesn’t make any sense. Like I have to stop doing that because I cannot give people more time than I Have, it doesn’t make any sense. so, so many things we’ve just done for so long. I’ve done this for seven years and it took me seven years to realize why this doesn’t make any sense. So now I’m like, okay, well, if you want me to fix something for you, one off or regularly, here’s my calendar link. You can book a two hour session, a four hour session or an eight hour one.
Book them ahead of time. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. And then, you know, that’s it. Like, I’m, I’m not I can’t do magic in that sense. I can’t go and be like, Oh yeah,
I’m going to like triple
myself kind of thing.
Colie: is that your current model? So people hire you to like maybe help them set something up or Help them get over a hump and then later is it when you offer these two, four, eight hour Opportunities to book your time or is that how people are booking your time
year round?
Jess: Yep. I don’t have them. I don’t have them on my website. They’re only, because I find that when you start working with someone new, that’s, you know, a growing business, like that dumpster fire every day, that’s something that’s kind of now needs replacing because it’s no longer. Up to the job kind of thing.
it takes a while to find all the messy bits and all the broken bits. So I, I usually do if you want to call it a VIP day or Um, I usually do probably one full day or at least a half day, but I charge more than my. Going right for those days because I spend time making sure that, you know, I have access I sit down in the days before and I start going into convert kit and seeing 379 tags that are called important, important 37 and then I’m
like,
Colie: is important 37?
Jess: see. And then I’m, I ask, and I’m like, any idea, important 37? No, no, but I’m sure it was important. I’m like, yeah, that bit I got the thing is like, we have no idea what’s going on. So like, it takes hours sometimes like three, four hours, easy to go through all the tools and stuff. So I usually do a full day where I actually go in and document everything that’s happening because also nobody has any documentation.
From any previous contractors, like, uh, any contractors listening, we always assume we’re going to be working with a client forever. So we don’t write anything down. It’s a headache. So just do your fellow contractors a favor and just. Write it down, like, even if it’s just a Google doc and just tell your client, if I’m ever not here anymore, for whatever reason, please give this to the next person, like that would, I don’t know, it would just make life so, so, so much easier.
Like, I’m not going to assume that I’m going
to be with any client
forever,
Colie: than that initial contracted because I mean, I do have quite a few people. I set up their Dubsado, you know, fully from beginning to end, but I wasn’t offering any kind of like retainer work because I mean, that’s not what I do. I go in. I give you the magical systems. I give you 30 days of
support.
Jess: It’s the one off
Colie: one off package.
I mean, and then in some cases they’ve gone on to hire like virtual assistants that I know that are working for them on the back end. And so then at least I know that those people are familiar with how I’m setting things up. And I mean, I do give my clients documentation in their offboarding guide, but.
It is a little cumbersome when I start working with someone who worked with someone before and when I go in, I’m like, okay, so what’s the problem with your current systems? And, you know, they give me the information, but I’m like, I wouldn’t have given you that workflow. Like, why do you have this workflow when it doesn’t seem to match what you just told me that you wanted your business to do, like, have things changed?
And most of the time they’re like, well, no, um, nothing’s changed. And I’m like, okay. I’m like, well, I’m just gonna get rid of this workflow because that’s not doing what you just told me that you wanted it to do. and so, I mean, I’m, I’m all about the S. O. P. is writing down what you’ve done. I mean, that would just that wouldn’t just be helpful to the future contractor.
It would be helpful to the business owner. Who at some point is trying to take some agency in their own business and figure out how things work because maybe they are at a different point in like a year than they were when you set it up. And so now they really do have the time and capacity to like learn how their systems work so that they can make changes on the fly and things like that.
But again, like that’s business owners in different stages.
Jess: even just a
Loom
Colie: Loom videos are my favorite.
Jess: to write it down, just sit there and be like, okay, like I’ve set this up. Here’s what I was thinking that would already, like, I don’t know, make it so much Um, so yeah, I do the initial VIP day for more, um, because it just, yeah, the headache of figuring out what the heck is happening here.
And what was that person thinking? Like sometimes I’ll come across, and you’ll probably see that a lot as well, like I’ll come across a weird setup, a weird Zapier construction. I’m like, why does this exist? Like there’s a direct integration between these two tools. Why
Colie: Zap.
Jess: this? And then I, I look at it and then I’m like, yeah, I’m going to simplify that.
And then it turns out that because of some way that something is set up further down the line, it couldn’t be done via this integration because it would mess up something somewhere else that I
Colie: Mm hmm.
Jess: So those kind of things are kind of super hard. So whenever I see someone build something that is not intuitive, like Red Flag, immediately find out why does that look like this?
Like, why didn’t they do it the easy way? Because probably the easy way. You know, it wasn’t an option or they just didn’t know about it. So they kind of went the complex route, but that’s the rare Um, and then once we’ve done, once we’ve done the half day or the full day, or sometimes it’s two days, if it’s like a funnel with like multiple upsells and things, it’s not a done in a day kind of thing.
Um. And then I’ll be like, Hey, you know, if ever you have another project coming up, you’re selling something else, you know, you can work on to half days because I’ve now done your documentation. I’ve now written it all down. I have all the logins. You know, ready to go. So if you need me to go in, I can now just get started and work.
I don’t have to spend hours, you know, digging through it. So if, if I’m in the account regularly, then, you know, they haven’t usually changed crazy things. And then, you know, I’m just like, yep, whenever you want to book, you can book one day a month if you want to, you can book it six months out. If you
want to be sure that. You know, the spot is um, do whatever you like Um, but the option is there. And sometimes it’s been really weird, but I’ve had people recently that are just getting on a session with me and they’re working with me. They’re like, so I didn’t do anything because I’m not really good with getting stuff done.
So now I know that I’m going to be sitting here for the next four hours. Can we please set up a sale for like November together and I’ll write the copy as you
Colie: hmm.
Jess: the stuff.
So I’m like, yeah. You know, sure. So, like, I don’t mind
how we, um, how we roll with those. I just, yeah, I just care that it’s done and functional at the end and I have a chance to check it without
sort of distraction in
Colie: Jess, it took me two years. It took me two years to finally build a page on the back end of my website that I sent to my clients after I did their first build and was like, these are the offers that I have. When you need ongoing support, you know, after their support period has ended. But I have no idea why it took me two years.
It took me two years of realizing that when I was done, I mean, most people were in a good place, but then, you know, I recommend that everybody check their systems every six months to make sure that everything is still good for what you’re currently doing in your business and like you said, if you’re progressing from like newbie to the messy shit in the middle.
You’re going to need your systems to be revamped. And then when you’re going from the messy shit in the middle to like that, you’re scaling and you’re delegating and outsourcing everything out. Like you’re going to need upgrades to your systems. And at that point, I just didn’t make it easy for them to say, Hey, Colie.
I’m adding this new offer. Can I just hire you for another half day? So now it’s on a website where people can just go and book at their leisure, like you said, but like, why did it take me two years to do that? Like, I don’t know. I mean, it’s the things that we don’t know when we set up these offers, but I think that anyone in the listening audience, if you currently have.
Like a signature offer that’s really working for you. I really encourage you to look down the line at what those same clients might need from you in six months or a year or two years. And if you still want to continue to help those clients, you should be thinking about the offers that you could make now so that when they are ready to rehire you and get you back into their business, you can do it.
Easily and not scramble at that point to create the offers and make the proposals and the funnels to get them to pay and like all of that good jazz. So I think it’s a little bit of like looking into the future, not only for the client, but like for ourselves.
Jess: Yeah. And thinking of how you’re changing, I love the idea that we’re forever going to be offering the same service in the same way to the same kinds of people. Good. I’m not the same person that I was even yesterday, nevermind two years ago. And I don’t know, the more people we interact with, the more data we gather about how things work or how things don’t work or where there’s kind of challenges.
And with that, we change as to how we want to help people. So also think of, is there something that’s been stuck on your mind recently where you’re like, I’m really interested in that. I’m really interested in how can I take this and integrate it with what I’m doing already. And feel free to try this out.
Like when you have a client that would be like a prime example for something you’ve been thinking about
that’s missing, just offer it to them. Like spend a couple of hours on it and just be like, Hey, I would love to test this. Would you be interested? You know, would you be willing to be my, my guinea pig?
Like, I’m not going to charge you anything for it, but it’s going to take some of your time. So time. You know, is also valuable just because it’s free. It doesn’t mean people are going to take it. If it solves a problem that you can see that they have, they’re like the prime person to try this out with, you already have a relationship with them.
They know you, they like your work, they trust you. So you can also slowly start integrating other things that you’re learning about or things that, you know, just on your mind as like, Hey, I would love to do more of this kind of work with people. Like I’ve been really interested in that. Where can I integrate that?
And just, you know, write about it, just say, Hey,
you know, I also like this.
Colie: and of course you’re expanding your lifetime client value when you do that. Like if you are creating offers that your current client base would benefit from. Absolutely. Those should be the first people that you make the offer to. I mean, I call it like the soft pitch. If I come up with something new and I know that there’s someone in my Instagram audience or on my email list, or.
Even better. Someone who’s actually paid me money as a client before. Those are the people that I presented to first. And I’m like, Hey, now I will say, depending on the offer, I don’t do it for free. I just figured I’d put that out there. Like I put a price tag on it, but it’s definitely a price tag that lets them know that, Hey, like when I launched this, it’s probably going to be double or, you know, whatever it is, that number that I’ve got, but I’m giving it to them.
Number one is a benefit because if I think that the offer should go this way, but after I’m working with my client, I realized that there are bits and pieces that I should have included. I mean, I absolutely go back and do those parts for free. Cause I’m like, okay, I didn’t really think about the fact that you might need this also.
And that’s going to be included in this going forward. So let me do this for you so that I make sure that, you know, the work that I’ve done for you. is working as it should for your business and get you a return on the investment. But I mean, yeah, anytime you want to test a new offer, and I just think that’s the best advice is you should go after your current clients first, as long as it’s a good fit for them.
Now, guys. If your new offer is like way below in terms of like, for example, if your current offer is for the people who are messy in the middle and you are creating a new offer that is for newbies, yeah, maybe you don’t offer that newbie offer to the people that you’ve already done the middle for. Okay, guys, we’re not saying that.
I don’t think I’m not going to totally speak for Jess, but I’m not saying that. I’m saying, yeah, I’m saying if it’s an offer that is perfect for where they are in business. I highly encourage you to make it up, even if it’s messy and make the offer because you can perfect the copy, the inclusions, the features, all of that stuff as you go forward.
Jess: And you can’t do it if you don’t have people to do that for. Like that is just literally the issue. So, so many times we create things because we’re like, Oh, I’ve had this brilliant idea. And then as people start using it, they’re like, Hmm, yeah, but what about this? And you’re like, ah, yeah, I hadn’t actually thought about that.
Thank you. So now you have some feedback there. And we always think that when we put out a new offer, it has to be perfect. Right. It’s gotta be the perfect thing. It’s gotta be the perfect service. The perfect course, the perfect content item here, the perfect sales page.
Well, who creates.
Colie: Definitely not me.
Jess: Like, you might think it’s perfect.
I don’t, I don’t do anything that falls into the bucket of perfect, but
how can You know,
without
Colie: You need data. If you don’t launch it, you don’t know how it will land. I mean, that’s the thing that just gets me. People are like, well, no, I mean, I have to figure it out, but no, by offering it to someone is how you figure it out.
Jess: that is the game. Like, literally, I was thinking for a while, like, I, I started, I am my podcast for pristine podcast specifically. And then I was talking about podcasting and I kept running back into these things that are really more marketing related or that are more business related and I’m like, I can’t carry on doing this.
Like this doesn’t feel right because a lot of our audience that have their own podcast. They are also new business owners and they don’t really, you know, they haven’t really run into this yet and they haven’t learned about, about all of these issues yet and they haven’t had these challenges yet. So I’m like, this doesn’t make any sense.
So I thought about renaming it because I was like, I need to broaden. What we’re talking about here, because I feel like the basic foundations of anything I’m missing, and we’re talking about content specific things, or we’re talking about audio or pitching, but we’re not talking about any of the fundamental things that if one person does something nice for you, you are more likely to do something nice back for them.
Like, those are very basic things that. That’s why we have free trials, because it increases conversion rate down the line. They’re simple things, but not everyone knows about that. And then I was, you know, thinking about a name and I’m like, what should I call it? Like, I have no idea, like this, that. And then, at the end, I landed on Scrappy Business. Because, and I had some funny feedback because people are like, Oh, nothing’s scrappy about this. And I’m like, it’s not about like, we haven’t like a negative association with scrappy is like a bit of shit. You know, like you have a bit of a shit business. Actually, I think you’re better off doing it scrappy and doing it fast
Colie: At all.
Jess: doing it
Colie: Yes.
Jess: at all, which is usually what is the other option?
Like endless perfection going to change the button color for the 25th time, because it doesn’t quite look And that’s kind of why I landed at that because actually people that I’ve worked with that, you know, were intensively working on perfecting funnels, they just write something and they write it quick and then they put it out there, they drop some money, they run some traffic on there and then they realize, ah, this bit works, but we’re losing people at this point and they’re not seeing the offer.
So this bit here is an issue. Rewrite that bit next
and
they do it
Colie: So, you know what I think about Scrappy Jess? I feel like you and I like to talk to the same people. We like to talk to the people who are action takers. Like I value the fast over the getting it done a hundred percent perfect the first time. And I think that’s what I hear you saying. And I love that you made this new offer Scrappy because I do think that Scrappy has a bad connotation, but like Scrappy just means that you’re willing to do it.
Before it’s, you know, been 100 percent perfected or before you 100 percent know where it’s going, like, let me just put this out here. Let me run with it. Let me collect some data. And I just want to make sure that I’m saying, because I think you guys all assume that I mean numbers when I say data. And so remember, there’s not just numbers.
There’s also like, testimonials and feedback. Feedback is data. So it doesn’t just have to be your numbers, but you know, you put it out into the world. People will tell you what they like about it, what they don’t like about it. And people will also tell you why they’re not buying. All you have to do is ask.
And if you don’t have anybody to ask, of course, that’s when you go to like your closest business friends and are like, okay, I mean, I know you’re not going to buy this for me, but like you could benefit from this. So would you look through it and tell me what you think? I mean, you can also get feedback in that way.
Jess: that’s probably the most problematic thing is quality of sometimes it’s hard to obtain. So while I’ve got nothing to do with all the things I’m doing already, I’m also doing a data science course on DataCamp because I’m very interested in the AI
Colie: Okay.
Jess: side of things. But I didn’t know how to code anything other than a few front end bits and bobs.
So yeah, so I’ve kind of gone down that pathway and I learned an awful lot at this point about what data can tell you if you however, for most businesses that I’ve worked with, particularly in the earlier stages, gathering data just means filling out a spreadsheet. It just means I wrote down how many people were on my website on
this,
Colie: And how
Jess: month.
And then I write down this, and then I write down this, but the thing is, sometimes when you look at data, you think that one thing causes. Another thing, so when I see more page visitors and I got more inquiries that month, I’m going to assume automatically that because I had more page visitors, I got more inquiries.
However, that is not necessarily the case. So I would say collect less data, but collect the right
data and then come to
intelligent
Colie: think then the response would be, well, just how do I know what the right data is? Um, and I would say that in the beginning, you probably need to collect everything because you don’t know what’s important, but what after you’ve collected everything, you can’t just look at numbers to determine causation and correlation.
I’m not going to go down a deep hole guys. I’m going to keep my statistics brain to myself, but. Okay. As Jess said, just because you have more page visitors doesn’t mean that’s why you had more conversions. But knowing that you had more page visitors might lead you down the rabbit hole of, okay, but what did I do to bring in additional page visitors?
Is it the ads that I’m running? Is it the content that I’m putting out on social media? Is it that collaboration that I did by Facebook group and doing a lesson? Like, The numbers themselves do not tell you the whole story, but the numbers are what give you the indication that there’s probably something else to explore related to that data.
Jess: And what you’re doing now is basically you’re immediately going to ask questions and that’s what you want to do. And I, I feel we don’t ask enough questions.
We have something here that must mean that conclusion, but actually anything that you see or interactions that you have really, they bring up more And then the better questions more information you find as a result of that. Because you’re asking different and better question, try that out. Um, I went last year with, uh, one of my previous clients, um, to do the, um, NLP practitioner with Richard Bendler, which was like a whole different experience.
But one of the things that we did is to ask people the question, why? So, you know, why did you do this? And as soon as you ask someone, why. Pay attention to how they respond to what you’re asking. Why did you put that remote on the table? And then ask them, so what, you know, what motivated you to put the remote on the table?
And the response is completely different because people with Y feel attacked immediately. And when you say, so what was the motivation for putting the remote on the table? They’re like, oh, well, you know, I was too lazy to get up. To be honest, there wasn’t any motivation. I was just too lazy. Whereas if you go, well, why, why did you put the remote there?
They all say,
oh, well, because you know, and it
turns
Colie: their position, even if they didn’t initially have one. No, I, I, I totally see that.
Jess: and you have that response with yourself. If you ask yourself, honestly, I’ve never had a good conversation with myself that started with, Jez, why did you, or why didn’t you do that? Then I go, well, you know what happened yesterday? And then I’m having a conversation with the 15 people sitting around the table in my head.
You know, one’s playing the music, one’s wanting to do something else over here. And then I’m like, okay, well, this is not going to go to a problem solving kind of thing. But if I’m, if I’m thinking what. Does this mean, how could I find out more information about this? Where can I get this information from?
Suddenly you’re thinking very differently and then you’re way closer to figuring out the solution to a problem because you’re asking yourself really, really good questions and I think the, the data and the numbers that you get, they’re just numbers, they’re just, okay, here’s 564. Great. Um, well, what does that mean? Where did these people come from? How can I replicate this? And then you’re, you’re closer to finding the solution. And I, I think.
In the beginning, it’s easy to take things for face value. I did that a lot. I was like, Oh yeah, this must
definitely means this for sure. And now
I’m
Colie: Does it
really? Yeah.
Jess: off about this.
Does it, am I imagining this? Or would I like it to mean this? That, that would be nice if it meant that I’m into that. So these are all the things where, where you’re really growing as a, as a person. That’s running a business and they’re not skills. Like who teaches you
in school to
Colie: No one.
Jess: The only question you were supposed to ask is can I please go to the toilet, you know, otherwise, I don’t
think that’s
Colie: Let’s bring this back around to like what we talked about in the beginning, because I do think that we are ending on a really good note about making sure that you’re not taking your data at face value, making sure that you are asking good questions. And I just want to put a little note out there to the listening audience.
You won’t know what good questions are as a newbie. This is something that is going to grow for you as your business grows. And to be honest, the asking the good questions. And making decisions from that is going to help you. In fact, grow your business. They do work side by side. But in the beginning, you’re probably going to ask some really shitty questions or you’re not going to know what to ask.
And that is true of any aspect of your business, particularly feedback. Like there’s that you have to collect client testimonials. They’re always like, well, I feel nervous. I don’t know what to say, but as your business grows, I think that you have a better indication of what results your clients are getting.
And then you ask better questions to get the feedback, to get the client testimonials, to write the case study
Jess: And you learn
Colie: that comes with it.
Jess: because again, asking for feedback, not an easy thing to do, receiving feedback. Not, we like to make it so just ask people for feedback. Well, who wants to get potential negative feedback? Like nobody, I don’t know with asking all these questions and with kind of becoming a little bit more detached from what you’re doing, what you’re doing is not a representation of your worth as a person.
Just a reminder, in case anyone forgets your bank balance does not determine your worth. Whatever car you drive does not determine your worth as a human being. And the same for your business. You can do one thing in business today and six months later, you can do something else. If you want half the people ain’t going to remember anyways, like it really doesn’t matter as much as we like to think.
And I think if you start detaching from the thing that you’re doing, this is just a thing that I do. This is a service that I’m offering. I’m not married to this service. You know, no one’s judging my life choices. If this service and this format doesn’t work, I need to find out and I need to find that out quickly.
I’m just getting feedback on this service. And if somebody didn’t like it, it just means that the way that I delivered this service stinks. That’s it. But we’re so close and emotional in the beginning. It’s a baby, you know, it’s like someone saying, Hey, you know, I don’t like your child.
Like tell them to stop doing that.
Like that hurts.
Colie: It does
Jess: better, like, literally, you just become a little bit immune to it. You just look for the facts. You’re like, okay, point A, point F, not working, change it. The rest is emotional. Someone else emotionally downloading onto you. Leave that with that person and take the
points that you
need to have to make a change.
Colie: take, take what you need and leave the rest behind. Yeah. All right, Jess. If the listening audience wants to find out more about you and your offers, where can they find you on the internet? And
Jess: name, which I’m going to entirely have to spell out to you now. Or maybe you’ll kindly but, um, mostly on my website. Uh, Jessica Dorneden. com.
So that is D O R N I
E D E N dot
com. Um, yeah, fab. This is for, for the blessing for the name.
Um, and otherwise I’m on Facebook, I’m on Instagram. I’m not allergic to Facebook friend requests. I’m allergic to people selling, saying hello in messages and stuff like that. Unless of course you’re trying to invite
me to promote
something that
Colie: then. that’s a no.
Jess: Please don’t DM me, but then that’s a, that’s a no from me.
Um, but otherwise, yeah, say hi. I don’t know. It’s a bit, it’s a lonely world. So if anyone ever
feels like they need to
reach
Colie: Make friends, make friends
Jess: always there. Yes.
Literally. Hello.
Say hi.
Colie: all right, everyone. I hope that from this episode that you have started thinking about your business and where you are in the current stage. And so I encourage you to think about that as you think about who to hire, what to outsource, what to delegate, and then keep asking good questions.
All right, that’s it for this episode. See you next time.
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