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Hello! I want to preface by saying I'm so thrilled this forum exists.
I read Fastlane last year and just finished Unscripted . There's only two other books on the planet that made my heart race while reading it-- they felt so "spot on" and so g*d damn "truthy" and basically validated what I've been experiencing my whole life. (And I read roughly 28/books per year, says my Kindle order history.)
I started my business as a personal finance coach about 8 years ago. (Don't hold it against me!)
Took it from side hustle teaching classes, and doing it on the side to quitting my job to pursue it full time. Before leaving corporate I learned about marketing/copywriting first, then how to sell (I used to be sick to my stomach before calls), then how to prospect, cold email, cold call and develop new business, all while making sure my eye was firmly on client results. Slick marketing will only get you so far...
I was (and still am) obsessed with "moving the needle" in my client's lives. Not all got great results. I was green and took on a few basket-case clients that probably needed like, electroshock therapy or something to get their sh*t together.
My methods align (mostly) with the Unscripted /Fast lane philosophy despite being in the personal finance space. (As the Investor Junkie recently said in the comments, "how to get out of debt" is a big source of pain for people.)
Personal finance teachers get a bad rap around these parts, but some people truly have no financial literacy and need to learn the basics (how to limit spending, grow savings habits, stop taking pay day loans, don't borrow money to enroll at Capella University etc.) Because it doesn't matter how much money they make they have a "consume more than you produce" mentality.
FIRST YEAR IN BUSINESS
In my first year doing it full time after I quit my job, I made some money. Not FU money, 60K but was profitable from day 1 and was only working part time hours. Maybe 25 hours a week. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but I didn't work weekends and was usually able to leave my home office at like 2 or 3 and be free for the rest of the day. Was happy with that. I was making about the same in corporate.
Then I gave birth to my first child and she was a nightmare baby. Dropped the business like a hot potato. When it was time to go back to work, I started from scratch, re-entered the marketplace with a strategy to use FB ads. (I figured, I'm good copywriting & analytics, this should work out great!)
Got shut down by FB ads almost immediately. Learned quickly not to make your main lead generation strategy contingent on the whims of Zuccc, the boy-king.
Had to go back to the basics. Cold-calling, relationship building, renting a room personally inviting people and speaking. Pitching media to write articles. Referrals, updating old blog posts for fresh traffic.
Current Process
Right now, I have a daily ritual of prospecting/new business development for 1 hour a day. Every day. Some days more time. And I track all my activities in a spreadsheet and that's based on a points system. So sales calls count more than cold emails, etc. That way, I can see how many "outreach" points I need to hit before I can expect a certain number of consultations.
And I do this basically while my kids watch a little TV. That's the best I can do -- but the results so far have been positive. Business is picking up once again. It's slow, but I'm making progress. I don't have the same time I had before children (and that's by design... I love spending time with them) but I'm determined to maximize the time I do have. Eventually they will be in school and I'll have more time again.
I work nights after they go to bed to write and take calls from prospective clients and also on weekends so I can continue to build momentum.
MJ (and the other legendary/gold/bronze contributors!) -this forum is amazing, I've been looking to find out where the "real" business owners hang out for some time.
Maybe I wasn't looking in the right places on Reddit or Facebook. (Lots of fakery on FB, and don't get me started on the ads) but you seem to have attracted a great community where we can "finally" have some real honest discourse about business.
Even when I go to events for women entrepreneurs it's a lot of nonsense and seems like everyone has drank the FB ad guru koolaid. This forum seems to skew male, but the ladies' version of drop-ship/affilliate marketing/internet marketing stuff is the life coaching/online business consulting/branding strategists stuff. But no one seems to be making much. Lot of beautiful photo shoots though.
Yes, I'm one of "those" female coaches and I'm still a bit ambivalent about what that means in an age where the coaching/consulting industry looks more and more like a pyramid scheme every day. (Def got sucked in there for a year, learned some things most was 'woo woo' crap.) Love the post on here about Tier 1-4 gurus. Know of few of them personally. Post was spot on.
I'm here to learn, to contribute and grow. Thank you MJ for your amazing books. I share them with every aspiring and established entrepreneur I come in contact with.
Thanks for reading. YIKES this turned out to be a novel. (I'm a bit sensitive, happy to answer questions, just if it's possible - be gentle in the comments? I'm not entitled to coddling, just a bit of kindness.)
I read Fastlane last year and just finished Unscripted . There's only two other books on the planet that made my heart race while reading it-- they felt so "spot on" and so g*d damn "truthy" and basically validated what I've been experiencing my whole life. (And I read roughly 28/books per year, says my Kindle order history.)
I started my business as a personal finance coach about 8 years ago. (Don't hold it against me!)
Took it from side hustle teaching classes, and doing it on the side to quitting my job to pursue it full time. Before leaving corporate I learned about marketing/copywriting first, then how to sell (I used to be sick to my stomach before calls), then how to prospect, cold email, cold call and develop new business, all while making sure my eye was firmly on client results. Slick marketing will only get you so far...
I was (and still am) obsessed with "moving the needle" in my client's lives. Not all got great results. I was green and took on a few basket-case clients that probably needed like, electroshock therapy or something to get their sh*t together.
My methods align (mostly) with the Unscripted /Fast lane philosophy despite being in the personal finance space. (As the Investor Junkie recently said in the comments, "how to get out of debt" is a big source of pain for people.)
Personal finance teachers get a bad rap around these parts, but some people truly have no financial literacy and need to learn the basics (how to limit spending, grow savings habits, stop taking pay day loans, don't borrow money to enroll at Capella University etc.) Because it doesn't matter how much money they make they have a "consume more than you produce" mentality.
FIRST YEAR IN BUSINESS
In my first year doing it full time after I quit my job, I made some money. Not FU money, 60K but was profitable from day 1 and was only working part time hours. Maybe 25 hours a week. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but I didn't work weekends and was usually able to leave my home office at like 2 or 3 and be free for the rest of the day. Was happy with that. I was making about the same in corporate.
Then I gave birth to my first child and she was a nightmare baby. Dropped the business like a hot potato. When it was time to go back to work, I started from scratch, re-entered the marketplace with a strategy to use FB ads. (I figured, I'm good copywriting & analytics, this should work out great!)
Got shut down by FB ads almost immediately. Learned quickly not to make your main lead generation strategy contingent on the whims of Zuccc, the boy-king.
Had to go back to the basics. Cold-calling, relationship building, renting a room personally inviting people and speaking. Pitching media to write articles. Referrals, updating old blog posts for fresh traffic.
Current Process
Right now, I have a daily ritual of prospecting/new business development for 1 hour a day. Every day. Some days more time. And I track all my activities in a spreadsheet and that's based on a points system. So sales calls count more than cold emails, etc. That way, I can see how many "outreach" points I need to hit before I can expect a certain number of consultations.
And I do this basically while my kids watch a little TV. That's the best I can do -- but the results so far have been positive. Business is picking up once again. It's slow, but I'm making progress. I don't have the same time I had before children (and that's by design... I love spending time with them) but I'm determined to maximize the time I do have. Eventually they will be in school and I'll have more time again.
I work nights after they go to bed to write and take calls from prospective clients and also on weekends so I can continue to build momentum.
MJ (and the other legendary/gold/bronze contributors!) -this forum is amazing, I've been looking to find out where the "real" business owners hang out for some time.
Maybe I wasn't looking in the right places on Reddit or Facebook. (Lots of fakery on FB, and don't get me started on the ads) but you seem to have attracted a great community where we can "finally" have some real honest discourse about business.
Even when I go to events for women entrepreneurs it's a lot of nonsense and seems like everyone has drank the FB ad guru koolaid. This forum seems to skew male, but the ladies' version of drop-ship/affilliate marketing/internet marketing stuff is the life coaching/online business consulting/branding strategists stuff. But no one seems to be making much. Lot of beautiful photo shoots though.
Yes, I'm one of "those" female coaches and I'm still a bit ambivalent about what that means in an age where the coaching/consulting industry looks more and more like a pyramid scheme every day. (Def got sucked in there for a year, learned some things most was 'woo woo' crap.) Love the post on here about Tier 1-4 gurus. Know of few of them personally. Post was spot on.
I'm here to learn, to contribute and grow. Thank you MJ for your amazing books. I share them with every aspiring and established entrepreneur I come in contact with.
Thanks for reading. YIKES this turned out to be a novel. (I'm a bit sensitive, happy to answer questions, just if it's possible - be gentle in the comments? I'm not entitled to coddling, just a bit of kindness.)
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