Inaugural Episode: Gigmasters, Solopreneurs and CEOs - EP. 1

Flourish and Grow to CEO

Welcome to the Flourish & Grow to CEO Podcast! We’re so glad that you’ve joined us in our journey to create this show, a long-time dream for us both.

In this, our inaugural episode, we focus on a problem women entrepreneurs often face when trying to build a scalable business. That is the step of going from solopreneur to a CEO with a business growth mindset that allows them to grow their business.

SHOW NOTES

We met in 2018 Lisbon, Portugal on a month-long coworking trip through my company, Adventurous Life, and hit it off instantly. The next year, Jane joined Adventurous Life on another trip, this time to Australia, and we knew we had to work together.

Having had personal experience with the challenges that arise when a business doesn’t have strong foundations, we knew that we had to share what we had learned, both our successes and our failures so that other business owners could create sustainability and ultimately, scale and leverage for maximum profitability and impact.

Most small business owners simply don’t have comprehensive foundations created for their business, and more importantly, they don’t understand how these foundations must interconnect and work cohesively together. This supportive structure is imperative if you want to run your business like a CEO, instead of what we call a “GigMaster”, meaning you work from gig to gig- and this is the difference between you running your business or having a business that runs you.

Over the last year, we’ve been working on a program for women entrepreneurs, aged 50+ (because we are), who are currently making in the $50-100k range in their business and are finding the break-through to the six-figure mark elusive.

After spending much of 2020 collaborating on how we wanted to serve the coaching and consulting community, we realized we were in our own start and stop pattern because we were doing the very thing that causes a business to stall – we were trying to create a business by executing in fragmented tactics, rather than looking at our business as a whole with interconnected strategies. It was then that we decided to be more deliberate in defining the vision for our company, create the strategy and then outline the tactics that needed to be implemented that would drive us toward our vision. Our vision is ensuring that no business owner should have to live with the chaos and unpredictable income like a gig master when there is an opportunity to step into the leadership position of the CEO who runs a predictable and profitable company!

This is how the podcast was born. We both love rich conversations that offer something of value, and we are passionate about sharing useful information. We also both love to entertain and hope that by offering some levity and light-heartedness, people will realize that although building a business can be tough, it’s important to have a sense of humor and resilience about it all.

We welcome your comments, questions and suggestions as you listen to episodes of the show and we hope you take away helpful nuggets you can use in your own business to scale and grow to CEO.

In this, our inaugural episode, we talk about:

1. A common recurrent business problem: why being a Business Owner is so challenging and the one thing that no one really teaches you but is fundamental to business success.
2. The gig-master trap: why just getting clients isn’t enough and how to set yourself up as the CEO of your business so you have more time and make more money. Pam shares her personal experience with this.
3. Starting a business is like building a home: you can’t think about the details before building its foundations. Understanding the 8 pillars and how without those in place, your business is always going to struggle.

Today we discuss:

• [02:19] The gig-master trap: why just getting clients isn’t enough, and how to set yourself up as the CEO of your business, so you have more time and make more money. Pam shares her personal experience with this.
• [05:55] What does it take to start a business with solid foundations?: from the reasons behind starting your own business to the questions you need to ask yourself before you even start.
• [09:49] Starting a business is like starting a house: you can’t think about the details before building its foundations. It’s important to understand the 8 pillars of this foundation and how without those in place, your business is always going to struggle.
• [11:54] The struggle of not having order in your business: by starting to line the details before building any foundations, everything we do will lack vision and, therefore, be a hopeless effort to sustain an inefficient system.
• [16:25] The benefits of being CEO of your own business: there are many, but the greatest is getting the satisfaction that we are providing good to other people with the job we do by creating jobs and offering solutions people need.

Connect with us: www.instagram.com/flourishandgrowtoceo

https://www.facebook.com/groups/flourishandgrowtoceo

Determine if you're ready to grow your business and how strong your foundations truly are at: https://flourish.biz/quiz

EPISODE 1 TRANSCRIPTION
Pam (00:20): Are you a lady boss making 50 to a hundred thousand in your business, and you're ready to break through that six figure barrier.

Jane (00:27): Have you done a great job of creating a nice life as the ultimate gig masker, but your inner CEO is calling you to greater Heights. Well, you're in the right place if you want to create and implement solid fundamentals in your business without sacrificing fun.

Pam (00:42): I'm Pam Ivey. I'm certified in small business management and I concentrate in the areas of online courses, training, and marketing.

Jane (00:52): And I am Jane Garee, known as the sales strategist for the non-salesperson. I work with successful growth oriented business owners, so they can hear slightly less “I can't afford it” or “I'll have to think about it” in their strategy sessions and consultations, and start hearing more “How do we get started?” Hey Pam.

Pam (01:11): Hey Jane, how are you doing?

Jane (01:13): I'm doing great. How about you?

Pam (01:15): Excellent. I'm so excited that this is our inaugural episode, so we're totally going to be making mistakes and that's okay. I think the really cool thing is we got started.

Jane (01:27): It is the really cool thing that we got started. And yes, I loved our little preamble there where we were kind of ingest going unique, New York, the rain in spade, you know, warming up our voices. I've got the coffee, which you're never supposed to drink because it's got cream. And then I also have water, but it's sparkling, which you never really should drink when you're speaking because of the fizz, you know, it might go up your nose and...

Pam (01:54): Well, that's it for me. Cause you know, I'm like totally addicted to diet Coke, but you know, I really wanted to let the listeners know why we've created Flourish and Grow to CEO.

So we see so many women struggling to create consistent income in their business, and many are running it like a hobby. And I know you like to say gig masters, and I wonder if you could just explain that to our listeners gig master.

Jane (02:19): So, this really hit me a while ago when it came to my own business, because what I had discovered is that I had done an amazingly great job of creating a business that was really back to back to back to back to back gigs. What I mean by that is I have, and I've had for a while, I have income, I have consistent income. I have really nice, consistent income. And I've created this for myself that I happen to adore. It allows me to go do the things that I want to do and have the things that I want to have and serve the people that I want to serve and et cetera, et cetera. However, what I really noticed when I started working with one of my mentors and new coach was that my business was this back to back to back to back to back gig.

So, I would get business. I would serve those clients. I would get that income and I would rinse and repeat. When I started looking at things more strategically, specifically through a lens of financial strategy, I realized, Holy guacamole, I am not running my business like a CEO. I am not making financial decisions through a big picture or to support the bigger vision. Really what I've done. A great job of doing is getting clients, serving them really well, delivering excellence. So they have the results they want. They pay me. And I go do that again. So a good master does not make a business. So I kind of defined gig master as you're in a great position, you've got money coming in. You're not worried about paying the bills. You've created a nice life and you have clients and you know how to get clients, but there's really, it's like a quilt.

There's no central theme. There's no overarching premise there where I do this business for this reason, with these projections, with this concept for, so I get these results. The results were actually just to continue to make money, not a bad thing, but that's actually not a complex and comprehensive strategy. So gig master is for anyone. If you're hearing, if you're listening to us right now, you might feel like you're a gig master sort of, you know, you're a gig master right? Remember that old Jeff Foxworthy thing. Master, if you get up and hustle with heart every day, you go figure out how to get clients. You do a great job. You land them, you serve them, you get paid and then that's your formula. And you go do that. You also are probably a gig master. If you're wondering, do I have reserves in my business bank account? Can I use those reserves? Why? And when do I want to use those reserves? That would be a tell that you're a gig master. Another way to tell if you're a gig master is when you look at a one year, two year or certainly anything further out plan. There's really no plan other than let me make sure I keep getting clients, let me make sure I keep making money.

Pam (05:08): So it's definitely a time for money thing, right? Trading your time for money. And you're continually having to get new clients continually.

Jane (05:19): Yeah. So any business is going to have to continually get new clients, but there's a big difference, but the strategy of a business and how we're going to get clients, retain clients, create sustainable growth. And what are we going to do today for, for income.

Pam (05:35): Exactly. It's just, it definitely can lead to the feast and famine thing because if you don't have your next client, then the money isn't coming in. Right. So that's really,

Jane (05:47): And if you don't have systems and processes put in place, that's also another big sign that you're a gig master. Yeah.

Pam (05:55): And we are huge on the fundamentals. We mentioned, you know, in the intro there that we're big on the foundations of business because oftentimes we start up a business and money is the end goal. We're trying to get away from a boss. I mean, there's a million reasons why we start a business, but money's the end goal. So we're busy working in the business to create that money. And we're not setting up any structure in order for us to get past that feast or famine gate master kind of scenario.

Jane (06:32): Right. And that's what happens. And I know you and I have talked about this before, where people become a business owner sometimes out of necessity. Certainly this year in 2020, I lost my job. What am I going to do? Sometimes it's out of desire. I really want to be my own boss. Let me go ahead and get this thing started. So the natural inclination is to put a hundred percent of the focus on revenue generation, otherwise known as the income, the money coming into paying the bills. So there's a heavy focus on how do I make money or how do I generate revenue rather than implementing foundations that will create a business and create a system that you can rely on. And that will last. And then of course allow for scalability and growth.

Pam (07:16): So, something that's really interesting, Jane that you talked about with me that I thought, Oh my God, other people really need to hear this. When we talked about sustainability and growth, you talked about decorating a house or something like that. Could you explain that? Because that was like light bulbs went off for me.

Jane (07:33): Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I've been 10 years in the code 25 in sales, like through bonafide sales, I've really never had a job that didn't have sales production in it. So the context of that is this. When I would go contractually to work for some of my clients, one of my jobs was to enroll people into a program that was a good fit for them, where they would get the results that they wanted. And we had pre strategy sessions where the people would come up and they would ask questions and look for answers over the course of the next three days. They were attending this live event. So they were in a live event for two or three days. They were allowed to come and have a strategy session with me. The purpose of the strategy session was for them to ask a specific question so I could give them guidance and support around that question.

And then of course let them know that that would probably be addressed, which it almost always was in that event and wanted them to be in the room at this time to listen to this specific thing. So what I noticed and what I encountered over and over again is that the questions were not good. And in sales, I always train the salespeople that the quality of the answers of any question is dependent upon the quality of the question. So what was happening is I had business owners come up to me and they had 20 minutes with me and I'd say, okay, what is your most pressing challenge? And let's see what we can do to make sure that we get some kind of strategy and plan, or I can give you advice around that. And I was getting questions like this. Should I post on Tuesdays or Thursdays?

How many people should my Facebook group be? Should I enroll people into a six week or two, a six month program? Those aren't bad questions in and of themselves, but they're not the best question. And here's why when I would then ask back, well, who is your ideal client? I would get something like women over 40, who are stuck or working women who need childcare. That's not enough of a description of an ideal client, or I would say, what, what kind of annual revenue are you wanting to create and how do you want to deliver it? And they would just kind of be there during the headlights look. So I started using the analogy of a house. If you think about building a house, what's the fun part for most people, the decorations I'm going to get in there. Do I want, what floors do I want?

Tile? What kind of paint? They really start going in visually before the house is completed. And in their mind, they're spending money or money either literally or not quite yet, but they're spending money. And they're thinking about the decorations and they spend a lot of time thinking about how the interior of the home is going to look, but what has to happen, or you will not have an interior of any home is the plan for the exterior. And it's not just the plan for the exterior. You want to call it back even further. Where do you want to live? Do you want to live in the mountains? Do you wanna live on the beach? Do you want a 10,000 square foot home? Do you want a thousand square foot home? What kind of lifestyle do you want? What kind of material do you want?

What is this house supposed to be so that it supports you in your vision of living. And so the analogy there is, don't worry about what color your toilets are going to be or what floor material you're going to have when you don't have the architectural plan. When you don't even know where you're going to live. And when you certainly don't have anything that's truly nuts and bolts in that instance materials, that's going to support you. That is the foundation. It's building the home with an architect. The interior decorating comes later. If you flip it and you do the interior decorating first, you're in a whole heap of trouble. And so that's what I see people do over and over in business is they ask questions. That really don't matter in the moment because it doesn't matter if you're posting on a Tuesday or Thursday, if you can't clearly define your ideal client and the problem in the language that they would use and a solution that's compelling and has resonance with your language. So post whatever, cause you don't really have anything to post. So the quality of the answers, which will determine the sustainability of your business is always dependent upon the quality of the questions you ask. Well, that's really interesting because as gig masters or, you know,

Pam (11:54): And we work from project to project client to client, when we're trying to grab those new clients or attract those new clients, we're jumping into tactics right away. So that's exactly what you're talking about. And you and I have kind of defined it as we have a dream like you were talking about, where would you like to live on the beach or in New York city or something like that. Then you create your vision around it. Then you create the strategy, then comes the tactics. So see how we're jumping into the tactics right away. If I go on social media, maybe I'll attract clients. If I do send out emails, if I do a podcast and you're scattered all over the place without any kind of vision and strategy of what you're trying to achieve. So after the tactics, then we implement. And then of course we measure to see if what we're doing is actually bearing fruit. If it's being successful for us. And then we can course correct. So I love that analogy of decorating the house before you've really got your foundation built. It's all out of order. It's upside down.

Jane (13:14): Yeah. It's out of order. It's upside down and out of order, we can talk about this on a future podcast, actually out of order, it wreaks a lot of havoc and people can't tell until they're well past it. But when the dream has to come first, the vision supports the dream. The strategy supports the vision, the tactics support the strategy and then the implementation and measurement are applied to the tactics. So it's not just a good intention of, I need to make money, but it actually creates a plan that you can implement and measure because that's, that's really how results happen and you can tweak from there. And when all of that is out of whack and out of order, you spend unnecessary money, you spend unnecessary time, you get unnecessarily frustrated. So the strategy is so key. And of course the strategy has to support your vision, which should ultimately really support the dream. And I wish somebody would have laid all of this out for me 10 years ago when I went into the coaching industry and into my own business, I've been on a hundred percent commission for...