Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to the solopreneur Sisterhood Podcast. A podcast designed to help heart centered service providers like you build a purposeful, profitable and sustainable business that supports what matters most to you. I'm your host, Becky McCleary, and I am so grateful that you are here.
[00:00:22] Speaker A: Hello and welcome back to the solopreneur Sisterhood podcast. I'm so glad that you are here today. So this week we are going to be talking all about priorities and how to know what to focus on next in your business.
So as I record this, I am just ending the beta test that I did this fall and that was an incredible experience.
So much so that we are now expanding on that beta test into a program, the Solopreneur Sisterhood Society. And if you're listening to this episode as it comes out, there is still time to join us as a founding member will include a link to that in the show notes. And if you're listening to this and you check out the link and there's a wait list, I encourage you to join the waitlist because the program does open up on a quarterly basis and so most likely you'll just be a couple months away from our next round. And if you sign up for the waitlist, we'll have some extra bonuses for those who are on the waitlist who end up joining us later on. So I encourage you to check that out.
So the idea today with focus and priorities is coming up because when I was doing the beta test and in my work with clients, I am seeing a lot of the same themes coming up with solopreneurs who, you know, we're trying to figure out everything in our business, which is a lot. The great thing about having your own business is that you, you get to decide what to do next and what to focus on and decide how to spend your time. And at the same time, that can be overwhelming sometimes, especially in the online space. I feel like there are so many people who are telling us so many different things that we need to be doing, and it's very easy to become overwhelmed and distracted and to find ourselves focusing on things that aren't really going to move the needle in our business. And so what I have noticed in conversations with the participants, in some of the participants in the beta test and some clients is that I was seeing people get caught up in things that felt so important to them. And I say this with love because I, as I was listening to them, I could remember earlier stages in my business where I was caught up in the very same things and I also know from my experience that I wish I had known at the time that those things didn't really matter. So things like how your website looks or your brand messaging or, you know, your, your signature offer, having those things in place at some point is wonderful, but when you're first starting out or when you aren't fully booked with clients, trying to perfect all of those little details isn't going to help you sign clients. I have never had a client who said they decided to work with me because of my website or because of branding or because of my signature offer, which I don't have a signature offer. I never have. The times I've tried to create ones, it's never been exactly what people needed, and I've always wound up creating more of a customized offer for them. So if you are finding yourself overwhelmed, or if you're feeling like you're doing all of the things and nothing is working, this episode is for you. So the way that I see it, uh, at all times, we have two main things to focus on as our business owners. One of them, I feel, is the same for all of us. And then the second one will depend on where you are in your business right now.
So the first thing to focus on in your business is if you have clients, it's the client experience. Because if you have clients, once you have clients, you want to give them the best possible experience.
I feel like this should be obvious, but I think we've probably all been a client of someone who did not actually follow through with what they said they were going to do, or they did not really deliver the experience we thought we were signing up for. I know I've invested in some programs that sounded really amazing. And then you got in there and the coach or the creator of the program was pretty much nowhere to be seen, which was really disappointing. And so not everyone we know from our own experience, not everyone delivers an exceptional client or customer experience. And so when you do that, you instantly stand out. So, one, you know that you are delivering the best possible experience to your clients, so they're going to be satisfied and hopefully beyond satisfied with their experience from that for you, that helps to build your confidence because, you know, it's not just an idea of being able to do this. You've actually done it and you, you've had good results with your clients, they've had a good experience working with you. The other benefits, besides just doing the right thing and giving your clients what they're paying for, is to, it's going to help you because hopefully you get testimonials from these clients. Some of these clients will refer other people to you, and some of these clients is going to be a great way to expand your work with them. I was, as I was thinking about this episode, I was thinking about my longest client, my role with her grew over time. And I feel like for a lot of service providers, this is an opportunity that we are simply not seeing. I think there is so much in the online space about getting clients and not enough about nurturing her clients and building that relationship and then also seeing how we can offer them even more support beyond that initial experience. So if you are a service provider like a virtual assistant, you're ideally with your client, you're not working with them on like a short term basis. You might start off with a small project, then hopefully that goes well and then you can go into more of a retainer package with them. But if you're doing a really exceptional job, ideally their business is also growing and so there will be room for you to grow with them as well. And so I think one of the lost opportunities a lot of business owners are missing out on is that that one client, your role with them could grow. So if you're something like a virtual assistant, that could mean that you work on taking on more tasks for them and then your retainer grows or your hourly rate increases because you're, you're doing more for them.
If you are doing something like copywriting and maybe you do one project for them, it doesn't have to be just that one project. If they have an exceptional experience and you're also looking at their business and you're seeing opportunities for how you could better support them, you could be offering some sort of continuation package beyond that initial package. That is one of the, in my opinion, the best ways to expand your business and to increase your revenue is to do more with the clients you currently have. And we do that by first giving them an exceptional experience. And so just a few things to definitely include in there is communication. As someone who has worked with a lot of business owners and a lot of different contractors, the biggest trouble area that I see is communication. Business owners are giving a lot of trust into a contractor and trusting that this person is going to do their best work and take care of the business as they would. You know, a lot of us, every business owner that I know, we started off on our own and we were doing all the things. And then when you get to that point and you're hiring someone to support you, that takes a lot of trust and trusting that that person is going to take care of the business that you've been building, take care of the clients you work with, and handle everything with care. And so clear communication does so much to kind of ease that anxiety of business owners and to know that they are in good hands. So I cannot stress the importance of communication enough.
If you are not already, just think about how you can be communicating more often or more clearly with your clients so they know what you are doing, where you are with projects and what they can expect. And it just helps to again, build that trust in that relationship and to know that things are being taken care of.
The other things to keep in mind with that exceptional client experience would be whatever you're delivering to them. So whatever work you're doing, making sure that it's the best that you can do. And with this, I do want to say, like, if you are a perfectionist like me, don't spend hours upon hours doing doing tasks for them, but trying to give it your best work. So, for example, I keep coming back to virtual assistant, because that's how I started out. You know, when you're doing a task, making sure that you are going through each step and being careful and thoughtful as you go through it so that it is done well. Now, with that, I will say we are human beings and we will inevitably make mistakes at times. And so with that, we want to try to minimize mistakes because we're going to be careful, we're going to be thoughtful, we're going to give it our best effort. But when we do make a mistake, own up to it. Because I have found with clients when a mistake happens, that you can say, I'm so sorry this is what happened, and explain it. Most of the time they are understanding because they understand we're humans and you can work on it together. And that goes much better than if you're trying to avoid admitting that mistake.
The other thing I would say with that is to look for how you can go above and beyond. So the communication is important, giving your best work is important, but then look for how you can go above and beyond. So it might be a case of you see something that could help support the business more, and you mention that to the business owner or maybe you. I've had this happen many times where a business owner is looking for someone who can support them in a different area, and I have connections and I can give them some referrals which will make that search process easier for them. I can think of one client where there was a Time where she needed a graphic designer. I happened to be in a mastermind with a graphic designer who I trusted and I recommended her. And they've been working together for three or four years now. So in that case, it was a win for both of them. So think about how you can be adding more value and supporting that business owner, because that is going to go above and beyond in showing that business owner that you care about them, you care about their business, you care about their success, and you're going to be doing more than just what you're simply paid to be doing.
So with all of that, when you are delivering that experience, that's when I would be looking at how can you offer them even more support as far as expanding your work with them or continuing your work with them? So if you're a virtual assistant, are there other tasks you think you could take on and being able to explain to the business owner how this would support them and what this would look like? If you are a copywriter, what other projects could you support them with and how would that help their business? If you are a graphic designer, are there other projects that you could take on for them? Is there some sort of retainer that you could set up with them? So that way when they have different things coming up, they already always have someone that they can come to to help them with the look and the feel of, of the design elements of whatever they're working on in their business. If you are a coach and your package is ending, is there another package that you can offer to clients to continue on with you? I've had this with clients too. Even in a group program, whereas a group program ends, we have a kind of a next level offer beyond that to invite them to continue the journey. Not everyone does that, but I highly recommend having that there because a lot of the time your client will want more support. And if you are not offering anything, they're going to naturally look for other people to offer them that support. So if you've enjoyed working with them and you're giving them the best experience possible, I would look for those opportunities to be able to to take that next step with them. So as far as priorities and focus on your business, I would definitely, as soon as you have clients, one of your top priorities is always going to be that client experience.
From there, depending on where you are in your business, I see your second top priority being one of two things. If you are not booked out or you do not have the clients that you want right now, your second priority is to, to Book yourself out or to fill those spots. So I do want to be clear that this looks different for everyone. So for some clients I've worked with, if they sign three clients, they're good with that for now, and then they want to focus on something else and then come back to filling more spots. They want to get comfortable with those clients. I will say too, for certain service providers such as virtual assistants or OBMs, I recommend spacing out when you bring on new clients because there are a lot of different things that you're learning about the business and you don't really like. You don't have the capacity to actually work with a whole bunch of people all at once. It's going to be a lot harder for you, a lot more overwhelming to learn different businesses all at once. So I would space those out. But if you are perhaps a coach or if you are doing work like copywriting or graphic design, where you can move from one project to another and have a more clear focus there, then if you want to have a number of different clients signing on, you know, in a month or so, I think that works.
So if you are not yet fully booked or you feel like you're not at where you want to be with clients, I would make that second priority, filling those openings. And we'll talk more about that in a second. If you are already fully booked or you're making the money you want to be making, your second priority would be to expand your circle, to either build your list, build your network, and we will talk more about that in just a few minutes. So two main focuses, client experience. And then you're either focusing on filling your openings or expanding your circle. So if you are not fully booked and you want to be signing more clients, you're going to first start off with getting clear on what it looks like to be fully booked. How many clients can you actually support? And by that I mean with the time that you have, but also the energy, depending on your personality, we have different capacities for how we can serve people. So I know for me, as an introvert, I can only handle so many calls before I just feel drained. So I am never going to be one who has, you know, back to back calls every day, all day, all day.
Because it is overwhelming for me. If you are someone who loves getting on calls, then maybe you will have a higher capacity and you can take on more clients. So the first step is to just get clear on how many clients are we looking to sign.
Once you have that number in mind, then what we want to do is we want to break it down. So for example, if you're wanting to sign three clients, that might be a doable goal in the next month. If you're wanting to sign 10 clients, I would recommend breaking that down. So perhaps it would be signing two or three clients this month, two or three clients next month, and so on from there. Just because it's going to be. I have always found it easier if I have a smaller goal to focus on because I can feel like I'm building momentum with that much faster than with that bigger goal. So once you know what your goal is, my recommendation is to be laser focused on what you can do to meet that goal. And so I really recommend the personal connections, especially if you're doing the one on one work. So that's where you would be reaching out to your personal network and you would be letting them know, hey, I have this package. Here's who I'm looking to work with. If you know of anyone, I have a few spots available.
I'd really appreciate it if you would share it with them. You can also share this on social media. I personally have not found that to be the fastest path to signing clients, but it does not hurt to put it out there. I just would not recommend spending all of your time creating content for social media. I have found that the personal outreach works better. And so this is where you would reach out to those personal connections. You would be reaching out to perhaps former clients, former discovery calls who didn't sign, just letting them know what you have available. I know a lot of people, if a discovery call does not sign, they just, that's it, they never reach out again. But I have found I've had people come back to me after discovery calls, months after the fact, asking if I was available because they'd like to work with me. So what I like to remember is just because there are no right now doesn't mean there are no forever with that. I'm not saying being pushy. There will be some people who you have a discovery call with and you realize, yeah, we're just not a good fit. And so, you know, wish them well and that's the end of that connection. But if you met with someone and you know that you could help them, you feel like you would work really well together. But for whatever reason at that time, what you were offering wasn't a good fit. I do recommend keeping in touch with them from time to time. I've had people like that where I knew what they were working on. And so if I found A resource that could help them, I would pass that along or if there was some sort of position that they were looking for. As far as you know, I worked with one person who was looking for a copywriter, or we had a discovery call. We didn't end up working together, but I knew she was looking for a copywriter. And so when I connected with someone who did work in her area of expertise, but they were a copywriter, I connected the two of them, and they ended up working together. So if you can be a resource to them, I highly recommend that.
So looking for, what can you be doing every day? And this is what I recommend to clients, too. So start off with your initial list. As far as, this is my goal. This is how many clients I want to sign. Here are the different things I can do to sign clients. And so, you know, I would make time in your schedule every day to be doing that. And so just for an example for myself is when I was filling this beta test, one of the things I was doing was doing personal outreach. And so I made a list of, I think it was over 40 people who I wanted to share this with. And I made it clear to them, you know, if you want to join us, I'd love to have you, but if you know of anyone who would be a good fit, I'd really appreciate this if you could share, share it with them. I did not reach out to all 40 of them on the same day. I broke it down for myself. So I would take time each day to do outreach, and I would send maybe four or five personal messages each day. So with this, I do recommend that you have a small template to start with. You will personalize it a bit for each person. However, if you have a template that just explains what the offer is and who it's for and how to take that next step, that works because that information is the same for everyone, and that can help to speed up the process. And the final thing I'll say with that is when I do that process, I have the list, but I actually will highlight names after I have sent out messages as just proof to myself, like, hey, I am taking action. I am moving forward with this. I'm doing what I can do. And my final piece that I'll say about that is when you are working to sign those clients, and you're doing, you're working through your plan, you're doing those things that came to mind first. As far as, how can I. How can I sell this? How can I reach the right people? If you're making some progress, but you still have openings. My the question I always like to ask myself is what else can I do? Who else can I reach out to? Where else can I share this? How else might I reach people or. Or what could I do to make this offer even more compelling? It's always a focus on what else can I do. And I say this because I've had a couple of clients lately slipping into that mindset of it's just not working.
And I get it because I've been there too. But what I have tried to gently point out is when we are in that mindset of it's not working, our brain is only seeing what's not working and we're not even seeing other possibilities before us. But when we start asking ourselves what else can I do? One, I feel like that's empowering. And two, I always find that some ideas come to me. It is not always in that moment. Sometimes it's later on in the day. But when I have that going in my brain, then my brain is working on seeing other options, other possibilities, other names are coming up and it's just going to help me keep moving forward. So that's what I recommend as far as focusing on selling out and booking yourself solid.
So if you already are at a point where you feel solid with your clients right now, you either don't need to take on more clients or you don't want to take on more clients right now. Your second focus, beyond the client experience. I would always recommend expanding your circle, expanding your network. The reason for this is the clients that you work with are amazing and ideally you love working with them. And most likely at some point your work with them will come to an end. And so you want to have that solid network, that solid circle or audience. So that way when you do have openings, you then have people who are ready to work with you. So with that, there are a couple of different ways to do this. So when I first started out online, and I think there's still a lot of talk about this, it was all about having an email list. And so I will say that I spent a lot of time trying to come up with opt ins and doing freebies and trying to build my email list.
And while I do believe that email lists can work because I have seen them work for clients, I have also found that for myself, when I was doing the one on one service, either as a virtual assistant or obm, I didn't have an email list. I didn't need an email list. What I had was A solid network. And so for that I think you could go either route. So if you are doing one on one work where you really can't work with that many people at a time, I don't think focusing on an email list is necessarily the best use of your time because it is going to take more time and more effort to be able to create that content on a regular basis, ideally at least once a week and be reaching out to people and also be doing promotion to get people onto your list. It does take up a solid amount of time. And so if you're working one on one, that might not be the best use of your time. If you have group programs or you're planning to have group programs, the list will be useful.
So you just have to kind of decide where you are with your business and what to focus on. If you are doing the one on one route, then I have found the personal network works really well. And so with that it would be attending networking sessions. If you want a virtual one, I have one once a month. Connect and cultivate and we'll have a link to that in the show notes. You're welcome to join us for that. And it would be doing coffee chats. It might be building new connections in different groups that you're a part of on social media, whether that's Facebook or LinkedIn, and getting to know other people. I will say one of the best ways I found as far as like building those connections was not necessarily creating my own content, but was answering questions for people on their content. If I was in different groups, I can remember vividly a couple of clients who came in eventually because I was in different groups, people were asking questions. I was able to answer their questions in the comments. And then none of those people who actually wrote the posts ended up working with me. But other people saw that I knew what I was talking about, saw that I was able to be helpful, and then they reached out and eventually we worked together.
You can be thinking about how you can expand your circle in different ways, but I think one of the ways we hurt ourselves as solopreneurs is when we get busy with client work.
Any sort of marketing for our own business tends to drop off our to do list because we are so focused on client work that we don't make time to continue to promote our business. And so it doesn't have to take up a lot of time. But I would just make sure that you do have something going on to expand your.
Your network. So it could be your personal network, it could be building Your audience. As far as an email list, you can decide what you want, need to do, but depending on your goals. But I would make sure that that is part of your priorities on a, if not a daily basis, then at least a weekly basis. So that way, when you do have spaces open up to work with you, or maybe you have a new offer, a new program, you have people you can reach out to, whether that is an email list or you're doing personal outreach to your network, you have people who you can reach out to and share that offer with. I think that's where a lot of us get kind of stuck, is where we've been so focused on client work and then we're ready to do something else, but we don't have anyone we can share it with. And so if you have that as your second priority as far as expanding your network and nurturing your network, whether that's nurturing your audience or nurturing your connections, that will help to make it easier when you do have that next offer ready to go or you do have a space to work with you. So those are my recommendations as far as what to focus on. So I know there are a lot of other things out there, but what I like to recommend is that you focus on those two top priorities. So client experience, always as long as you have clients, and then the second one is either booking yourself out or expanding your circle. So that way when you have an opening or you have a new offer, you. You have people who you can share that with. So I hope that helps. If you are feeling overwhelmed, if you are feeling like you're doing everything and it's not working, we can really kind of pull back and simplify and then we can see how some of those other ideas and maybe some strategies can support one of those bigger goals. So if you would like more support with this, I do offer a free one on one strategy session to help you with any area of your business where you feel stuck. I will have a link to that in the show notes. I invite you to book a call with me. It's completely free. I do my best to give you as much support as I can in 30 minutes. If at the end of that you decide you would like to learn more about working together, I'm happy to share that with you too. And whether or not we work together, I'm always happy to share different resources or connections who I think will be able to offer you the support you need right now. And if you have not already joined us in the solopreneur Sisterhood we have a free community. We also right now as I'm recording are opening up our paid membership as well and I would love to have you come join us in there. We have a really amazing group of women coming together to support one another and cheer one another on. And I will say even though you are a solopreneur, it does not mean that you have to figure out everything on your own. There are a lot of incredible women out there who have great experience and great wisdom and expertise who can support you along the way and we would also love to learn from you.
[00:28:46] Speaker B: Thank you so much for joining us and listening to the Solopreneur Sisterhood podcast. I hope this episode has offered you some encouragement, some insight and some new ideas to support you in building a business that works for you. Remember that our world needs you, your gifts, your vision and your work.
[00:29:02] Speaker A: And I'm cheering you continue on as.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: You bring your vision to life and build a purposeful, profitable and sustainable business that supports what matters most to.
