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Coaching Women to Trade Foreign Exchange (ForEx) – Girls Gone ForEx – With Robyn Mancell – AEP #32

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Guest: ​​Robyn Mancell
Company / Business name: Girls Gone ForEx
Business web site​ ​ ​  | ​ LinkedIn ​ ​ | ​Instagram | Facebook | ​​ Twitter  | ​ Youtube

Robyn Mancell is the Co-Founder and Mindset Coach for Girls Gone Forex, an online trading academy that teaches women across the globe how to trade in the foreign exchange (Forex) market.

 Before the Forex business and the nonprofit, Robyn was self-employed for over twenty-five years in almost that many industries. After her divorce in 1990, she left corporate America, going from stable, salaried nine-to-five employee to a commission-only entrepreneur. All while raising her children as a single mom.

Tools / Books / Resources mentioned:

​Tools: ​None

Show Notes:

What is ForEx business? Why is it interesting?

How Robyn got into Foreign Exchange investing and how she met her co-founder.

Details on how Robyn and her co-founder used Facebook to start a contest to recruit first 15 or so women out of hundreds of applications for their first course and used social media to track their progress.

Robyn shares details on how started multiple businesses over a period of 25 years spanning from restaurant business to insurance sales to ladies fitness center.

Robyn’s motivation of ‘being afraid of not doing new things’ as opposed to ‘being afraid of doing new things’.

Robyn’s observations on characteristics of people who do well in her classes as well as life. #1 is mindset. People who can focus, persevering, and not quitting. People with a drive and purpose and not looking at failures as failures.

Robyn’s reflections of things that she could have differently. 1. Connect with mentors early on 2. Be willing to listen to people with more experience.

Final advice to aspiring entrepreneurs; 1. Just go for it. 2. Have a network of mentors, supporters, and collaborators. 3. Don’t look at failures as failures but as learning lessons.








​Episode Transcript (Click to expand)

00:02

Ramesh: Hello everyone. Welcome to the agile entrepreneur podcast. This is your host Ramesh Dontha. This podcast is about starting and building your own business with purpose, passion, perseverance, and possibilities. Today we have a guest dabbling in a business or build a business that we don't come across that often. So I'm a very honored to have you know, a person from investing and trading side. Her name is Robyn Mancell. Robyn, welcome to the podcast.

00:38

Robyn: Thank you so much, Ramesh. I'm happy to be here.

00:41

Ramesh: Excellent. Let me first introduce your business and then we'll get into the discussion. Okay. Robyn Mancell is the Co-founder of a business called girls gone forex. Okay, we'll get into that business in a second. And she's also a mindset coach. So Robyn, very first I know you know, the name itself is pretty interesting. Just let's go over what your business is about.

01:08

Robyn: Okay. So girls gone forex is a company that was started to empower women to learn how to day trade. We specifically trade in the a foreign exchange or the forex market as it's been called. And that is a $5.3 trillion business a day. So girls gone forex is on online trading academy where we teach women all across the globe how to trade in the foreign exchange market and how to be profitable in that market.

01:44

Ramesh: So first I think it's very interesting that you chose a specific area. How did you get started with the forex business?

01:53

Robyn: Well, I actually had seen a lot of people talking about it on social media. I really didn't know anything about it even though my background had been in sales and insurance. I did not know anything about the foreign exchange market. I think most of us have heard of people day trading, typically stock options. And I ran into a woman who had been trading for 20 years. And one of the things that she said to me that got my attention was that all you need was a laptop and Internet access and anyone, no matter what their background was, could learn how to trade and that you also, it was one of the markets where you needed the least amount of money to get started. And she was very successful at it and I totally respected her. And so just the fact that she said she knew a lot of people did not have access to this information, that I saw as a problem that I was hoping to be able to solve.

03:02

Ramesh: So you decided, I mean, you found a really good partner and then you decided to go into business with her. And how long ago was this?

03:12

Robyn: So in 2000 and I'm going to say around 2016 is when I started seeing people talking about forex most of the time. And in 2016 I had not met my business partner yet. I was actually, I'm a serial entrepreneur. I've been self-employed over 25 years. One of the businesses that I had was showing people how to go green in their homes. So I literally met her on a trip to Dallas to shoot a pilot for my company that at the time was called green makeover team. So I didn't even know her. I literally tell people that the stars aligned, and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. That's literally how I met her.

04:01

Ramesh: Can you believe it? Some of this happening’s occurrences are so serendipitous. It just happened.

04:07

Robyn: Oh yeah. It was amazing because her ex-husband is, he was actually a life coach. And so when I went into do people's homes, I didn't just, you know, put solar and do that. I wanted your home to be peaceful inside also. So I brought in a life coach. We were filming at the house he sent us to was actually her house. And I told him, I said, I'm excited about what I'm doing, helping people go green, but what I really want to learn, but I really feel passionate about bringing to the world is teaching people how to trade forex, but I don't know how to trade forex. And he at that point started laughing and he said, that's my ex-wife right there. she's been trading at that time; she'd been trading for 15 years and I was blown away because his name was Chance. And so I tell everybody that I met her by chance.

05:01

Ramesh: Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one. And you found a partner, you decided to start the business. So tell us about how it got started. I mean, how long did it take for you to incorporate and then how did you go about pricing your coaching and all that stuff?

05:18

Robyn: So it really, okay. So I am a big science of getting rich fans. I even teach that course. And so first it started with a thought. I had a thought and before I even met her, I was literally writing things as though it had happened on my social media. So I would say I'm going to teach a hundred women how to learn how to trade. And I didn't even have anything at that point. And so I was putting that out there. And what's great about the social media and the memories that come up is that it's just, it is that confirmation that I was manifesting this years ago. So I was reading book called Turtle Traders and turtle traders is about the gentleman, Roger Dennis who is a multimillionaire and he ran an ad in the Wall Street Journal to find people, he told his business partner, I bet you I could take 15 people, teach them my system and turn them into millionaires. I was reading that book and I remember as I was done reading it, I called her on the phone. And I said, look, because she told me no, actually she didn't want to teach. And I said, look do an experiment with me. Play along with me. I just finished turtle trader. She had read it also. I said, I want to do something different. I said, I've already come up with the name girls on forex. I said, what if we did our own experiment, but we just did it with women. Because he only had one woman in his, in the story of the turtle traders. And so I told her, let's do something different. Let's just do women. Let's run a contest. Let's pick our women. And I've been very big on social media for the last 10 years or so. And so we got a hundred applications literally in 48 hours. we gave away the first classes to 15 people. Those 15 women had to go through the entire course. And they actually all 15 completed the course, but 10 actually graduated with the title we now call trade like a girl. and so those women basically, they had met the criteria that Linda had set for them to be able to graduate. So once they graduated, they were given those tools. And there are four of those ladies who are now coaches and they are now helping women who go through the academy to have more success. So that was 2016, the idea was birthed. in 2017, March of 2017 we put on the first class. And we've been going strong ever since then.

08:13

Ramesh: So how long is your class?

08:15

Robyn: So the class initially when we first started it would take you about six months to get started. There were three phases, four existential, prep school and then university. And you had to actually pass each of those classes to be able to go to the next one. And it would take you about six months to do that. So this year, the end of this year, almost like at our anniversary for when we first came up with the idea, we're now trying something different where we have everything together, including the mindset courses which I teach, we put everything together and accelerated it to where now people can be done in 12 weeks.

08:57

Ramesh: Okay. It's about three months. All right. How many people do you take per class? I mean, were you taking and are you planning to take going forward?

09:06

Robyn: So we moving forward now we have had classes as big as a hundred and that's too many, but we found that out after doing it. So now we try to keep classes because it looks like this is our first test on what we call the accelerated training program. We believe that we don't want more than 50 people in a class so that we can give them the attention they really need.

09:32

Ramesh: Okay. So roughly you will have about four classes per year then going forward.

09:36

Robyn: Exactly. Exactly. Three to four. I'm going to say three to four because we typically take off that when the holidays start around Thanksgiving, we know people are not focused and they're not paying attention. So we have been pretty much shutting down around Thursday. I'm sorry, around Thanksgiving and Christmas. And you probably know this. A market tends to be a little erratic around that time too.

10:01

Ramesh: Yup, exactly. So you're right. Okay. So let's say three courses. That's good. and I think I'm assuming that between these courses and all that stuff. So this is your full-time business. This is not your side hustle, is that right?

10:15 Robyn: No, this is not a side hustle. This is, it literally incorporates everything around it. We have been building it out to where we now have a nonprofit called trade by girl foundation. We want to be able to help those that don't have the money to afford the classes. We want to be able to give away scholarships to the entire course.

10:38

Ramesh: Wow. I mean, just, its mind boggling what you guys are able to do here. It's awesome. So Robin, let me ask a little bit about the operational aspects of your business because the way I found you was when I was inquiring about how people got their first paying customers in different ways and then you responded a very unique way that you found you’re paying customers. Let's, can we go through how you found your first paying customers for your coaching academy?

11:09

Robyn: Oh, absolutely. So by using social media and letting people know, because we did get a hundred applications for people who wanted that free class. We kept people abreast of the success of these ladies. We literally let them participate in the journey. And we shared a lot of information. We created a group on Facebook, and we had everybody. So I guess that was kind of our first funnel. So we let everybody know what was going on. So literally when those ladies graduated, everybody was watching it. It was almost like a story that people were waiting for it to unfold. And so we made the big announcement after, you know, proving that what we were doing was working. We then announced our first classes and we literally had people signing up left and right.

12:05

Ramesh: Excellent. Wow. That I taught was a very unique way where it is not just a contest, but it's a public contest where other people could see the journey themselves. That's very good.

12:17

Robyn: Absolutely.

12:18

Ramesh: Very nice. So let me switch gears a little bit and then let's talk a little bit about Robyn Mancell the person here. So Robyn, you've been in the business for 20, I mean like you've been self-employed for 25 years, so why you decided to become self-employed? What were you doing before?

12:36

Robyn: I was working for the phone company. I had worked for both here in California. The Mobil was going through that breakup at the time. So I was going through a divorce. I have three sons who are now grown, but at the time I was working for the phone company driving in all of that traffic. And because of seniority, because I was low seniority, they were going to change my hours. I wasn't going to be able to pick up my kids from daycare in time. They literally changed, I mean I used to work eight to five and they decided that because you're low seniority, you now get off at six. Well, back then six o'clock there weren't a lot of daycares open past six o'clock. So I literally had to make a decision. It was emotional at that time because not only going through a divorce. but my kids, what am I going to do? So I ventured out into the, you know, the 1099 world and that again was something that kind of happened, I don't want to say by accident, but a young lady was came out to talk to me about insurance. And when she did, I asked her, how did she get to do this? Does she make her own hours? She said, yeah. And I said, well, you think I could apply? she said all across the world. And I said, well, what do you need? And she said well you should have a four-year degree. I said, well, I have a two-year degree. She says, well why don't you give it a shot? I went to the interview, I learned about, I didn't know anything about stocks and bonds and the insurance world. I knew nothing about it. They seem to be impressed with my interviews. So they brought me on, and I would leave work early as the phone company. They would say it's slow, who wants to go? And I'd raise my hand and I would drive about 40 minutes so that I could study because they don't pay you while you're going through that process. You guys have to do that all on your own time.

14:44

Ramesh: How long is that?

14:45

Robyn: Oh my gosh. I think it was like three or four months and I went and then I passed my insurance tests. Then I had to pass the series six test knowing nothing about that industry. I did pass it the first time and then it was you got to go out to the world and find business. You've got to go find customers, right? Yeah. I hadn't done that before. I was working nine to five. I came in and I knew what my check was going to be and all that and so I was the only, at the time I was the only female, the only African American woman in that office, and I broke every record they had in that office. I really believe it came out of; I was excited about helping people learn about something I didn't know anything about. But I was also needed to take care of my kids.

15:48

Ramesh: Wow. Robyn, I think that's a, you gave another good strategy for starting your business. When somebody comes to your house selling something, ask them about what they do and how you can get into their business. Excellent.

16:01

Robyn: Yeah, that's what I did. And I stayed in that industry for about three years. And once you do that, once you learn that you can create the kind of income you want, it just really has to do with how much time you're willing to put into it. Then the world is wide open at that point. You realize that you control this, not other people. You get to control it. Yeah. So that's what I did. I literally, I've done, you know, I'm kind of a serial entrepreneur, but the one thing that never changed was that I was able to create my own destiny at that point.

16:38

Ramesh: Correct. So, Robyn, let's talk about other business. So you were there for three years and then so what other businesses did you work in?

16:46

Robyn: Oh Gosh. I owned an executive recruiting company as a headhunter. I owned a restaurant; I did for eight years. I owned a ladies' fitness center. I've done sales in a number of areas. I've even done direct sales and been a top, a top 20 incomer in direct sales.

17:15

Ramesh: So it looks like a, you have a compulsive behavior that you have to, after some time you have to start a different business.

17:23

Robyn: You know what it is. I typically, if I see a void in the market or if I, you know, the world is so big and there's so many different things out there, you can't possibly know about them all. If I see something and I think it's going to help people and I think that people don't really understand or know about it. I do tend to jump into the ring. I will honestly say that I do.

17:49

Ramesh: So a little bit about your motivation, your drive, right. So the original drive, we understand from it life changing event in your life that it started that and then afterwards, so what's driving you to like, for example, why didn't you stick to one business? like you know, why you wanted to start different businesses? What's the motivation?

18:10

Robyn: You know, it really, that's an excellent question because it's on probably why I couldn't stay on the job for that length of time. I really find out that I think the world is so much in the world and I don't, here's the thing, I'm not interested in it everything. But if I see that there is an opportunity, if I start feeling really passionate about something, like when did sell insurance, I could see the true value in people taking care and providing for their families. I could see that a lot of people didn't know that there are things that you can do to plan your future. So I get excited about that. When I had my gym, it was health, people need to take better care of their health and maybe women will feel more comfortable in a place that's just for them. When I had the restaurant, oh, which was one of my most favorite businesses, it was building community. So we had kids that used to bring the parents in because we were all about community. We were all about people coming in and feeling like they were at home. We knew everybody by name and everybody, they used to write stories about us that they said we reminded them of cheers because nobody was a stranger there. So this with the, with forex, it became when that, when the woman said to me, who is a millionaire I would add, when she said people don't have access to this information. I said, well what do we need to do to give them access?

19:53

Ramesh: Right, right. That's awesome Robyn. So as you were going through these changes, were you ever afraid of what their fears that you're going to fail may not work out? I mean, how did you navigate them?

20:08

Robyn: I am more afraid of what my life looked like if I don't do something. I'm not afraid of trying new things. I mean, I have an extremely spiritual feel about just life period. And so I'm more afraid of what it'll look like. Having regrets or not doing. I think money is the easiest thing in the world, but make to be quite honest with you, you just have to find what works for you.

20:37

Ramesh: Excellent. So Robyn I mean, that's a very good mindset there. So let me switch a little bit into because you've been dealing with a lot of people, right? coaching a lot of people. So I wanted to ask you about the characteristics or the attributes of the people who are successful. You know, who find success in life because you've been dealing with many people. So we can take the forex as an example, right. So out of these people, like the first class you said 10 people graduated, but likewise you know so what are the common characteristics that you see in the people who are doing well?

21:16

Robyn: Yeah. Well t that right there is the, probably the million-dollar question, but there are obviously key characteristics and being the mindset coach, 90% of people fail because of mindset. Not just in trading, but in most things in life. So the characteristics are people who are able to focus, know what it is that they want, their why fuels their decision to keep going and to not quit. There's something that, and usually again, that is their why that's bigger than just needing the money, because money is not what fuels, I mean, obviously for some people that's what it is. But I think the majority of people, they're looking for something to be fulfilled. They're looking for purpose. They are driven. They don't look at failure as failure. They look at it as a learning or a steppingstone to getting to where they need to be. All of that rolled into one thing is their mindset. And that, you know, it sounds like a cliché when people say, how do you do one thing is how you do everything. But it is 100% is, and some of that fortunately is how some people grew up. It's passed on from families. It's passed on from the people that are around you. And a lot of times unless you make the decision to do something different, you get stuck and what you know as normal around you.

22:51

Ramesh: Yeah. I mean the other thing, the other question that a lot of people ask is can you change people's mindset? some life changing events of course could do that. Are people just like, they been like that forever. And then let's say somebody who's pessimistic and looking at the negative side of things, they continue to be that way. Or people are generally optimistic. And then looking at the positive side of things, probably you know, will get into this kind of mindset you're talking about. Is that what you observed?

23:23

Robyn: I don't think you can. Honestly, I don't think you can change people. I think people have to make the decision to change themselves. I think I know I can give them the tools. I know I can guide them in the right direction. But something has to click for them. I cannot motivate you to do, that has come from within. And that doesn't mean that you can't get to that point. It doesn't mean that you can't have some experience, or you just can't make up your mind that you've had enough, and you can do that. it’s not going to be because of me. It's going to be because of something inside of you.

24:03

Ramesh: I'm 100% with you Robyn there. So as we come to the final stretch here now, first let look at your journey. the different steps you have taken. And definitely you already said that you don't want to have regrets. But from a learning perspective, what are the things that you think you could have done differently in this journey?

24:25

Robyn: Some of the things I would've done differently is I think from the very beginning of being going on this entrepreneurial journey, I would have made more context with mentors earlier on. I would have met them. I would have, I would have really cherished those relationships a lot more because sometimes you're so young and you hear things and you think, I'm experiencing this now because at my age, a lot of young people, they think you're just, you know, just kind of talking at them like their parents and they don't always value the experience of your wisdom. And so I definitely, this is what I do try to tell my sons that I have and anyone who will listen. Yeah. That although you may feel like you have all the answers, there are some of us who have actually experienced what you have yet to experience. And most things are not that different. I have this saying that technology has changed, people not so much. The way we think and the way we process information that has pretty much stayed the same. It's just technology is what is different. So the other thing about being this age too is that I can pretty much see what's going to happen before it even happens. That's what wisdom does to you. You're kind of like, oh, I've seen that before. but I'm not cynical about it at all. It is just that there are certain things in life that are going to be what they are. Some of these clichés that people don't, you know, that they think are corny and stuff. There's a reason they been around as long as they have because they're the truth.

26:25

Ramesh: Yeah. I mean, that's why I think a lot of this information keeps getting repeated because we don't get it. And Robyn, so as the last question. So what advice would you give to other aspiring entrepreneurs or people who are already started a business, but they want to grow their business.

26:45

Robyn: The advice that I would give you is to really just go for it. Make the decision that you believe you have something that works. Do Your homework. There's so much access to information is, I mean, and I know sometimes it’s too much information. But choose a select tribe of mentors, supporters, collaborators. Find that circle, create your circle very early. And then go ahead and do whatever you need to do to make it happen. There's a lot of free resources, there are so, oh my gosh, there's so much out there. Companies just wanting to help you. I just finished a workshop called elevate your business and that was, they did an article on it in Forbes magazine and it was priceless. Oh my God, priceless thing. You just would be really surprised, but also get with people who are willing to support you. who believe in your vision and just create that circle of people that think like you do and then put on your blinders and just go. You will be surprised how far you will get from not overthinking things and just having the right people that are around you to support you.

28:07

Ramesh: Excellent advice Robyn I can't disagree with any of the things that you said. I mean I'm a firm believer that you get started as soon as possible and especially if you want to do something and then you keep evolving, right. And you learn more about you and more about the business and then you keep evolving.

28:24

Robyn: Absolutely. I totally agree.

28:27

Ramesh: Hey Robyn a very fascinating background, and an excellent discussion. I really, really enjoyed this discussion, Robyn. Thank you very much.

28:33

Robyn: Oh, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. I'm so excited and I've already shared your information with some group of business owners that I have. I think you're doing amazing work.

28:44

Ramesh: Thank you, Robyn. I Appreciate it.

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The post Coaching Women to Trade Foreign Exchange (ForEx) – Girls Gone ForEx – With Robyn Mancell – AEP #32 appeared first on RameshDontha.com.

Building A Coaching Business With Transformational Coach, Desiree Crowley – AEP #31

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Guest: ​Desiree Crowley
​Company / Business name: ​​​​​​TimeJump Media
Business web site​ ​ ​  | ​ LinkedIn ​ ​ | ​Instagram | Facebook

Desiree Crowley is a transformational coach, visibility strategist and speaker for women coaches ready to expand their exposure and scale to six figures in their online coaching business. She helps women create a stand out presence online so that they can bust their visibility fears, stand out as the premium expert in their field, and create six figures and beyond!

Tools / Books / Resources mentioned:

​Tools: ​None

Show Notes:

Desiree Crowley starts off by explaining what a transformational coach does which is coaching entrepreneurs to transform their mindset to be more confident and be more visible. She also talks about certification programs in this space.

Desiree’s entrepreneurial journey is a typical journey where she took the opportunity of being laid off to learn all about digital marketing , blogging etc. She finally believed in a coach and her program to invest $5,000 and spent all her spare time on her business.

Desiree started a facebook group and ran a challenge ‘level up your beauty’ to encourage women to go on video. She built her mailing list to 500 but didn’t get any paying clients. She invested in another coach which finally resulted in $12K or so in few weeks.

Even though Desiree’s entrepreneurial journey had ups and downs, she believes that every step that she took (even where she failed) was necessary for her to get to where she is now. She learned from each one of those steps.

Desiree believes that being consistent is key to grow your personal brand. Even though her first lead magnet was a bust, Desiree learnt and improvided and continued to grow the list. Her business is about putting people in front of the camera with video.

Desiree believes that being imperfect is OK. Success is all about the habits and rituals you do every day.








​Episode Transcript (Click to expand)

00:05

Ramesh: Hello everyone. Welcome to the agile entrepreneur podcast. This is your host, Ramesh Dantha. This podcast is about starting and building your own business with purpose, passion, perseverance and possibilities. Today we have an exciting guest. Her name is Desiree Crowley. Hi Desiree, welcome.

00:30

Desiree: Hello. Thanks for having me.

00:33

Ramesh: So let me introduce Desiree to you. Desiree is a transformational coach, visibility strategist and speaker for women coaches ready to expand their exposure and scale to six figures in their online coaching business. She helps women create a standout presence online so that they can bust their visibility of fears, stand out as a premium expert in their field and create six figures and beyond. So Desiree the way I look at you, you are a coach for coaches.

01:06

Desiree: Yes, I'm mostly specialize in coaches, but I’ve definitely worked with a lot of different business owners. But of course, you know, the mixing is important.

01:16

Ramesh: Excellent. So my very first question, well, what is a transformational coach?

01:23

Desiree: Transformational coach is basically, I guess to me, I don't know anyone else, but for me it definitely means it goes along with mindset. So a famous Tony Robbins quote is that success in business is 80% your mindset or your psychology and 20% is the strategy or the mechanics of what actually goes into it. And I just have fully seen that in my own life in my clients and in my business. And I was certified as a transformational coach and I decided to bring that in and to my previous background. And so I just kind of put that together and I have found that that's really what makes the difference for my clients is that they really do need both. And luckily I have been able to master specifically around my area of expertise, which is visibility and putting yourself out there in a bigger way and helping my clients to transform with it, because it really does take an inner transformation to be that six figure entrepreneur that puts herself out there in that way.

02:28

Ramesh: Okay. I see. So if you don't mind me asking, how do you get certified as a transformational coach?

02:35

Desiree: You can look at, there's various programs you can do. I mean there's like the big ICF one, but I went through a certification program of about three years ago and just received the certification from a coach that had partnered with the ICF. So it just, you just can look for different programs and yeah, that's how I did it. Unfortunately the coach that I did it through, doesn’t offer the program anymore. Otherwise I would recommend that one, but I know that there's many others out there as well.

03:06

Ramesh: Okay, great. Hey, Desiree, and then, so let's look at your own entrepreneur journey. If you could walk us through, when did you start your business and then let's go through or what was the initial business model and then how it evolved. If you could go through the journey, please.

03:23

Desiree: Sure. And feel free to stop because this could be long.

03:27

Ramesh: I'll Probably interrupt and ask you questions anyway, go ahead. Yeah.

03:34

Desiree: Yeah. So the way that I started, I first, I actually was laid off from my job in 2015 and I just knew that, that was basically God's way of saying like, there's something greater for you. It was really devastating at the time, but I just knew in my heart that it was time to do something for myself and to start my own business. I had no idea what that was going to look like. I didn't even know the coaching world really existed at that point. So I started with a just kind of what I felt at that moment I really enjoyed, and that people would just ask me about, which was a lot of just fashion, beauty, lifestyle type of advice and makeup, things like that. And some like, well, I can start a blog with that. And that's basically how it started. I started a blog, it was healing and beauty steals and I started, I really just kind of dove in. I had no idea what I was doing. I really started learning so much about the online space, digital marketing, blogging, all, everything, you can think of social media and I would say that I spent a lot of time just try to teach myself these things. And I did, you know invest in some courses. I invested in my first course I remember right around that time, it was only, I mean back then it was like $197, which was a huge deal for me. I thought that was outrageous.

05:03

Ramesh: And then feel free to mention the courses if you think they are relevant for the audience as well, if you really thought something new in those courses.

05:11

Desiree: Absolutely. I definitely will. So that's how, that's how that started. And I realized, so I invested in this program and then I realized that I got overcome with what we call the imposter syndrome. I just felt like, why am I the person to talk about fashion and style? I need some certifications. I need all sorts of things. Like I'm nobody to talk about this stuff. Even though the reason I started it was from the encouragement from many people around me that believed that I did have knowledge around this and wanted my knowledge about it. So I just, you know and then I realized wow this mindset thing is a real thing. And, slowly I just started to, I guess you can say on accident, right? Things never happen on accident, but I stumbled across an ad for a coach that was promoting something. And long story short, I ended up on a phone call with her, you know how that goes. So and I had no idea, I was so new. But this coach basically gave me just a little bit of that confidence that I was, I guess looking for at that time. But okay, yeah, you know, you can do this, you can teach coach on style and confidence. And so I decided, all right, I pulled out a credit card and invested $5,000 into this program that was a marketing just full on just all my marketing and I thought well, that's all I need. I just need the exact process. You know, I definitely got sold on that belief that you just need a step by step process and you're going to make your millions and that's all you need. And so I'm like, damn, that's all I'm missing. I moved forward and I did. I was, to my benefit I was very coachable. I did everything. I took action. I was obsessed. I started working at different jobs temporarily for that time and I would just go during lunches and just work on my business. After lunch, it was all, I was pretty consumed by it and I did all this work. I learned so much along the way and then I realized, I'm not clear. I'm actually super confused on who my person is. Like who am I really serving? What am I actually doing? What's the transformation that I'm offering? And I just, I got really stuck. I allowed myself to get stuck, I would say. And from there, I don't know how I, aye came to this, I guess my epiphany moment where I realized, you know what, I have been doing videos back then with Paris, I don't know if you remember Periscope, it was like the app for live stream.

07:58

Ramesh: I am not familiar with it.

08:02

Desiree: So before Facebook live was a thing, before it ever existed, there was Periscope. And Periscope was where entrepreneurs, coaches were doing live streams, were promoting their business, growing their business. And I had been doing videos on there, you know, just sharing content, sharing a value. And I just realized that there was so many women specially, I mean, there's men, plenty of men too, but I just came across so many entrepreneurs that just couldn't even think about putting themselves on a video or getting themselves in front of a camera or putting themselves out there in that way. Yeah. Let alone on a live stream. So I just, I decided to run a challenge to help women to learn how to use live video. And then by the time I ran the challenge, Facebook live had just barely become into existence. It had just gotten released. So it was all the rage, but nobody was really using it, because they were so scared. So finally I decided you know, I'm going to just run a challenge just because I see that this is a problem. I found this like a space I guess, that I could fill, and I could teach people. And I was like, I don't know if this is what I'm going to do, but I'm going to try it. I'm going to take some action on it and do it. And I ran this challenge. I also started growing my list right along that time.

09:26

Ramesh: Oh, I'm sorry. Where did you run this challenge? Or did you just send it to your email list or did you do it in a Facebook or a where did you do this?

09:34

Desiree: Yeah, I have been. So I guess to backtrack a little bit, I had started a Facebook group, not really with any good strategy or intention. It was just, I had been in another like a wives group, whatever group and I had just put it out there to, I was like, hey, anyone building a business, like want to just kind of collaborate and talk about business stuff. I'm going to just do a group if you want to join. So it was definitely just very in the sense in that way. Just like, hey, I'm just going to do this group. Someone helped me manage it. Not that I'm going to be the leader of it. So I started that group and as I started going along, I was like, you know what, I’ve got you know some people already in here. And then I realized, you know group can be a really great way to grow a business. So I decided to just run the challenge in the group. So I started growing my list with, I had previously created like a video series that completely bombed. I mean, it was awful.

10:38

Ramesh: What was the video series on?

10:43

Desiree: I called it up level your beauty. But it was very vague. I just, I had no idea like how important messaging was at that moment and I really wasn't clear on what I was doing and so I just, but I was taking action. So I think, like I said, there's something to be said about just moving forward.

11:01

Ramesh: Yeah, exactly. I mean I think you learn from the experience. I mean that is what it's all about, moving forward.

11:06

Desiree: Yup, exactly. So I had done that. But it was just very vague, it was tangible, yes, this is why people would want to join. So anyway, so I learned from that. But then after that is when I decided to do this challenge and I actually, I guess all, I guess conventional wisdom, I just started running ads. I learned the basics of how to set up some ads. I started running an ad to this video series. It converted. And not the video series, I'm sorry, the challenge, so well, I mean I was getting, you know, about $2 leads at that point and it was for a challenge. So that's really good. And I got about 500 people on my list by the time the challenge started and I was, like I said, I was still brand new. I still hadn't gotten one single client and I did the challenge.

12:03

Ramesh: How long did it take? I mean by this time, like how much time did you spend

12:08

Desiree: For which part?

12:10

Ramesh: For the challenge, and then basically when you started and it's few months, I'm thinking.

12:15

Desiree: Yeah. So I mean I had been, I think I did the challenge around like, I think it was in the fall. Yeah sometime in the fall of 2016. And so I did the challenge and I got some discovery calls. People were interested, but I had no sales skills at that point either. So I didn't really know what I was doing there either. But fast forward a few weeks after that I had kind of built this list. I didn't really know what to do with it. Excuse me. And I when 2017 started, I decided okay, something has to change. I'll spare you the drama. But basically that coach yeah, she was not exactly the best fit for me at that time. So yeah. So things just kind of fall apart with her and I realized, well, I still need, I still need to have like help. I still need help and I decided to hire a one on one coach this time. And also I also invested in like a year long program that was kind of a bigger community, which I also felt like I was craving. I really think that's important too, is to have the right support as far as community. So I was kind of trying to decide between the two, like one-on-one or this community with this other coach. And I felt in my heart that both were the right thing for me, which was scary. I really believed in following those, those divided tuition in those hits. And that's exactly what I did. I was like, okay this is like the stupidest thing ever. But I really feel like it's right. And I did it. I invested in the coach and in the community and I made $12,000 within like just like four or five weeks of doing it.

14:13

Ramesh: So basically, okay, this is good. So I mean you went through you know, two or three coaching programs, but each one of them, you're learning something. But I mean, actually even learning that something is not good is also a good learning, the first coach and then by 2017, you started making money.

14:34

Desiree: Yeah, exactly. So I mean, I think that's what people don't realize. Like, I mean, I was at this for months and months and months and I could have easily given up and I wanted to give up many times and I thought like, maybe no one's ever going to pay me. Maybe I'm just this like money blocker, like money just can never ever, I thought all sorts of things and there were all lies obviously, but it's easy to think that. And so I just, I think, yeah, I finally, I finally had my breakthrough and I think it was just this combination of so many, like a few different things that came into play. But I made that the investment that I’ve made in that program and in the one on one coach, I mean, I made that back so quickly that, that's when I’ve realized, wow! Like the universe really does have my back and this was the right thing for me. Even though it seems like the stupidest thing in the world. Why would I invest so much into two different things? But one, they were very different, you know, one was more of a community. The other one was, and it was my certification actually, but the other one was just attention on my business and on what I'm doing and really helping me to pull the hot leads, because I hadn't you know built an email list, but I had no idea what, I mean I was sending them stuff here and there. But I had no idea how to pull the hottest leads out of them and actually turn them into clients.

16:03

Ramesh: Yes. Actually this is pretty fascinating journey. So, but if you were to go back because, and initially you are struggling and then suddenly there was a breakthrough. So, but if you were to go back, could you have done anything different?

16:16

Desiree: Ooh, I just feel like that was my journey. Like I just don't, I don't believe that things happen by coincidence and I feel like, yeah like you were saying, like there was just so much learning that happened all along the way. I would say there's definitely, obviously hindsight's 20:20, and now because of those experiences, like I am more careful with like even my investments and making smart investments into my business and also realizing that it's part of, it's what successful people do. They invest in themselves. They have the proper support, they surround themselves with the right type of people. And I think there's just so, there's not one thing that makes you successful. There's many factors. And I just think that I learned so, so much that I needed to learn in order to even be where I'm at today and to be able to pass that on to anyone that I come across my clients, my community. And yeah, I just wouldn't take that back even though there were some really sucky moments for sure.

17:23

Ramesh: Yeah. So I could see that. So now let's talk a little bit about your business. Like how do you acquire customers and how does your customer pipeline fill up? Is it one-on-one? Are you dealing with you know, multiple customers at the same time? If you could talk about this whole customer acquisition process.

17:42

Desiree: Yeah. For my business personally. So right now, I mean it's a different obviously than when I first started, but a lot of the same principles, you know, I'm still working and focusing on building an email list. So I do have specific Facebook, this is my favorite way. Okay. There's many ways, but Facebook ads are just, they are my thing, that's what I love doing and that's how I love bringing in new leads and clients and the way that, yeah, I really focus on growing my list and then of course, nurturing that list and consistently knowing how to pull those hot leads out of that list. And from there, I mean, obviously there's other ways that I’ve expanded to as well. Like now, you know, now I'm doing interviews like this one, I'm doing podcast interviews, I'm speaking on other people's stages and now it's become, you know, yes, you do have to put yourself out there, but now it's just a lot easier to even attract those opportunities. And so I think those types of things have helped me to fill up my pipeline as well as just, yeah just consistent, I would say overall consistently having something out there that is putting you out there and showing you to the right people, whatever that looks like for you.

19:06

Ramesh: Okay. So, all right, so let's get into the next part of the podcast, which is, it's an advice to the aspiring entrepreneurs or the other people who have started the business. How can they grow? But I think we could take it based on like, if somebody comes to you like this, so you got customers, a women entrepreneur, she started her business. So what is your approach? I mean, how do you go from there?

19:31

Desiree: How do I help them? So for one do I have a process? Absolutely. But I really do believe that. So, and this is why all my programs have my support. Like I'm there, I have some self study things, but it's my actual coaching programs, like whether it's group or one-on-one, I'm there every step of the way. But the actual, the actual process, the first thing is to really identify who is the person you're speaking to and really know them better than they even know themselves. I think that's the foundational piece of everything you do and you know what I learned from my first lead magnet that was a total bust is that you cannot put airy fairy concepts out there and think that people are going to respond. It needs to be tangible. You need to know exactly what you're offering them, even from the lead magnet, even with the free stuff. So that's the foundational pieces knowing that. And then from there you can then start creating content. So of course, as a visibility strategist, one of the first things I have my clients do in my processes, start putting yourself out there. I don't care how you do it. Just the biggest thing is taking imperfect action consistently and just creating that habit of just being out there and publishing and positioning yourself as that authority right away. And the best way to do that is by creating really awesome content that shows that you really know what you're talking about. So that's one of the first things that I have them do. And then of course, teaching them how to, I have a framework that I’ve created along the way that really works for Facebook ads. It works for posts, it even works for Facebook lives. So each of my framework and then I have them start creating content around there person's pain points, around what they desire more than anything. And then of course, the calls to action you need to tell people what to do next and then from there once they start, so that's really early on. And then from there, of course, we start refining. Okay, what do you want to be known as? What is your thing? What's your story? Who are you as a person? Because there may be people that do exactly what you do and knows you. No one is you. And so you need to allow yourself to shine. And this is the person I am, this is why you would pick me over someone else if you resonate with me. So just teaching them how to share their story and in a way that strategic of course, and that is something that the ideal client would resonate with. And from there it just, then bringing in the structure. So building their email list, email marketing. I think that's, like I said, that's the money is still in the list. Does not matter what else is out there. The money's still on the list. And so that's, you know, creating a powerful freebie that people, that your ideal client just loves and response to, building that email list and then promoting that funnel, you know that funnel, that first funnel that you start building and doing it, you know through social media, through either joint ventures or partnerships, collaborations. And then of course my favorite is Facebook ads. So and then live videos is a big part of what I teach them as well. Because I don't think that's going anywhere anytime soon.

23:13

Ramesh: It looks like that's really taking off, I mean like I see more and more live video on even like LinkedIn as well.

23:24

Desiree: Yup. Exactly. Exactly. So that's just growing. And I think any entrepreneur that's not utilizing video consistently, it's going to be a detriment to their business. And I get that it's not easy. You know, there's so many questions that people have, well what do I say on video? How do I make sure I sound good and professional and as an expert and just so many things come up for entrepreneurs and that's really where I started. You know, my first challenge that really that people that I really, I realized, wow, people really need this. They hurt eating it up like candy. I realized that that's such a big pain point for a lot of online entrepreneurs. So that's still such a big part of my process and my program that I walk my clients through.

24:10

Ramesh: Excellent. So Desiree I think you really made a video, you know, I think that's why now I understand your visibility aspect to your overall program here. So as we come towards the end of the podcast are there any things that we have not covered or things that you want to give an advice to the audience?

24:31

Desiree: Ooh, gosh, there's so much I could say. I really would say at the end of the day and this is something that I'm so grateful that I learned, but just looking back and I see a lot of entrepreneurs falling into this, especially when they're getting things going and things aren't going as well as they thought it would. You know, they're going through those stumbling blocks and the challenges. Just take everything as a learning experience. Because it's, that's exactly what it is. And life's not happening to you. It's happening for you. And I’ve just really internalized that. Otherwise you're just going to make yourself miserable and you're going to make the entire journey miserable if you're just blaming and you're like, well nothing ever works for me. And maybe I'm not meant for this. Maybe I'm not good enough or whatever. You know, there's so many things that can come up and doubt, you know I feel like I had what we call entrepreneurial depression for awhile and I think I just suffered unnecessarily when in reality everything, I'm just so glad that I went to those things and then now I understand so much and I feel like I'm so much wiser as a person and I have that much more power now in my business because of that. And so just realize that you're going to be tested. You are going to be tested in this journey and it's up to you to how committed you are and how connected to why you even started to begin with. And if other things started to take over, I mean building a business, it's really the best personal development training you could ever go through. It's going to bring out every insecurity, everything that you didn't even realize you probably struggled with and probably new things as well. And I also believe take imperfect action every day. Perfectionism is a thing. And I see it over and over as I see it in myself. I see it in men and in women all over all the time. And it's that feeling of well I'm just, it's like I'm not good enough. I'm not good enough to do the video. I'm not good enough to, to say this or whatever it is. Just take small, imperfect action. Just pick something that you can commit to every day, whether that's, you know what, I'm just going to post a picture with two sentences. You know, whatever it is, commit to something and start building that muscle. Because at the end of the day, your success is all about your habits and your rituals that you do on a daily basis, that will show over time.

27:07

Ramesh: On the action you take on every minute, every day. So this is fantastic. I mean journey is pretty fascinating from 2016. It looks like the floodgates just opened in 2017 for you. So good luck to you as you keep building your business. It looks like you're on the right trend here with no visibility transformation and then the whole live video thing that you're really focusing on.

27:38

Desiree: Yes. Thank you. Yeah. It's been a journey and that's what it is. Everyone's got their journey.

27:44

Ramesh: Yeah. Everyone has got the journey and then definitely your journey. It's taken a really good turn since 2017. Good luck.

27:52
Desiree: Yes. Thank you very much.

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The post Building A Coaching Business With Transformational Coach, Desiree Crowley – AEP #31 appeared first on RameshDontha.com.

Building a Leadership Development Consultancy with Dr. Nanette Miner – AEP #30

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Guest: ​​Dr. Nanette Miner
​Company / Business name: ​​​​​​​The Training Doctor, LLC
Business web site​ ​ ​  | ​ LinkedIn ​ ​ | Facebook

Dr. Nanette Miner is a leadership development and workplace learning strategy consultant. She's the founder of and managing consultant for The Training Doctor, a South Carolina based consulting firm that helps its clients to prepare today for the organizational leadership they will need tomorrow.

Dr. Nanette Miner starts the talk by talking about the leadership vacuum that will be there because of the bay boomers staying long in their leadership positions leaving millennials and Gen-Xers out of the loop. Dr. Miner believes that every employee should be trained as a leader from day 1.

Nanette talks about starting her business 28 years ago as a customer service training in the hospitality industry. The initial challenges with that industry made her pivot her business to re-use material designed by other established training organizations and customize them for each company.

Dr. Miner candidly talks about the current struggles about building a steady customer pipeline because of her recent shift to leadership training. As she is not known in the industry for leadership training, Nanette is focusing on establishing herself as a leadership trainer.

Nanette talks about the downtimes in her journey and how she coped with them to continue to be self-employed. Even though she was on the verge of bankruptcy, Dr. Miner never thought of quitting. To some extent, she was inspired by her father who was self-employed.

Nanette detailed her current strategies of acquiring customers by offering online workshops followed by in-person training. She also talks about the pros-cons of investing in leadership training and people leaving versus not investing.

​Episode Transcript (Click to expand)

00:02

Ramesh: Hello everyone. Welcome to the Agile Entrepreneur podcast. This is your host Ramesh Dontha. This podcast is about starting and building your own business with purpose, passion, perseverance, and possibilities. Today we have a guest from an industry where every business needs somebody to help them. That is a leadership development. Dr Nanette Miner. Hello, Dr Nanette.

00:52

Nanette: Hi Ramesh. Thanks for having me.

00:56

Ramesh: Thank you. Thank you. So finally, we are able to get together after some scheduling issues. Thank you.

01:00

Nanette: Yes, thank you as well.

01:03

Ramesh: All right, so let's get started with the leadership development company that you have. If you could just to tell us on the listeners what your organization is about.

01:12

Nanette: Okay. Well, I’ll give you a little back story first. So if you're familiar with training and HR publications there's a precipice coming I say. There's a 2030 precipice for business and that precipice is that all the boomers are going to be gone from the workplace. Millennials and Gen z are going to be the primary population in the workplace. And the problem that that creates for organizations is that generally boomers are who our leaders are in organizations these days generally is somebody in their mid fifties to, you know, mid seventies sometimes. They've had a long time in the workplace in general. They've had a long time in the companies in which they work. So they understand the culture and the values of the companies in which they work. And they've been in their leadership positions a long time as well. And one of the things that has happened is that they've basically kept gen x and the millennials out of the leadership positions, because the boomers have stayed in their positions for so long and they were such a large population to begin with. So you asked what is my business about? So with that kind of understanding, my business has three prongs actually. One is to help business owners and operators to figure out who their next leaders are going to be and get them prepared before 2030. The second prong is to give business owners and HR people and operations people the ability to develop leadership skills without having to have a formal leadership development program or a formal training department at all. I just wrote a booklet that came out in June called leadership from day one; 25 activities to develop leadership skills in your employees. Because I think we should be, everybody should be developing leaders. We should have leadership events or you know, leadership department per se. Everybody, a manager should be developing leaders. So how do I do that? I don't know. I'm a finance guy. I'm a, you know, operations guy. I'm a shipping guy. How do I develop leaders? So the booklet is intended to give people who don't know where to begin, someplace to begin. And then the third prong, which kind of grew organically out of the others. There was no intention at the beginning to help this population. But the third prong is to help young business people to prepare themselves for leadership roles because honestly, most employers are not going to do it. So I started a podcast in the spring called be a leader and it has tips and words of wisdom from seasoned leaders, people who've been in business a long time. We asked them to just share like a voicemail. What's a tip that you'd have for a future leader? What's a lesson that you learned the hard way or what's the you know, what's the wisdom that you live by? And then also if they get the leadership booklet that I just mentioned, an up and coming leader can actually reverse engineer the activities in there so that they can look like leadership material in their organization. So that was a very, very long answer, but that's what we do. We help companies get ready for that 2030 precipice in one sentence.

04:09

Ramesh: Wow so 2030 is the precipice. So Nanette, how did you get into this business? So how did you start your business?

04:17

Nanette: Well, I started 28 years ago. Originally planning to do customer service training in the hospitality industry. That was my background for the first few years out of college. And I realized that there was not a lot of good customer service training in that field. So I got laid off from the job that I held in 1991 and I thought this is a perfect time to you know, go into my consulting business and start to do customer service training. And I quickly realized that the hospitality industry does not give a hoot about customer service and they don't care about training generally, not just customer service. Because it's such a high turnover business. So the hospitality industry really falls into that you know, why train them when they're just going to leave? And my argument of, but if you train them, they wouldn't leave, fell on deaf ears. So that didn't last very long. And then I had to do a pivot where I realized that the training that I was doing that was designed by other companies like, you know, things that you could buy off the shelf like Sanger Miller, which is just Sanger now. It wasn't really well designed. And so when I was doing training for companies as a consultant, I was spending a lot of my time re designing the materials or just finding better ways to deliver it to make it hit home for the learners, because what they were offering, I mean basically I felt like when I was giving book reports all the time, like I really wasn't getting people the skills that they needed to go back on the job and do what they needed to do. So then after about four years of that, I realized I should just design training. That is what I'm really good at doing instead of redesigning all these other people's training. So I did that for probably the next 20 years. I strictly designed custom training for mostly fortune 500 companies. But it was for every topic that they needed. So I'm not industry specific, I was not topic specific. I've worked for broadcast media, I’ve worked for pharmaceuticals, insurance, you name it. The industry doesn't matter, because my expertise is in how adults learn and especially how adults learn in the workplace, because they have to get that information quickly. They have to be able to internalize it. They have to be able to use it on the job. It's not just, you know, oh that's nice. I mean there's a reason you sent them to training is because you want them to behave differently on the job. So that really is my expertise is getting people to behave differently on the job. So I spent 20 something years custom designing training for companies and all sorts of industries and all sorts of topics. And then the longer I spent in these industries I realized, nobody's really doing leadership development well. There is leadership development out there. But my problem quote unquote with what's being done in like the fortune 500 companies is that they pick a select few who get that training. Like there's a lot of hypo programs, high potential people, right? So they think, oh well we'll hire you out of college and then, we'll give you this training and eventually you're going to be the star for our company. And I just feel like that's so discriminatory. Like why wouldn't you give leadership development to everybody and let the people who are good at it and like it rise to the top. But meanwhile the ROI and giving everybody leadership skills and it is not even really leadership skills. It's just, it's the soft skills that people have to learn the hard way, like you know good communication skills or how to collaborate with others or even just knowing what your company does. I find that so many people in organizations, you only know their role. Like if you're hired into finance, you don't know what operations does, you don't know what shipping does. You don't know what HR does, you don't know what marketing does. And nobody ever helps you learn any of that either. But if you want to be a leader in an organization, you have to know how a company runs. So I really feel like companies themselves would be better served if they just gave leadership, quote unquote leadership training to everybody. And then those people who like it and enjoy it and are good at it, will naturally rise to leadership positions. But meanwhile you've got everybody communicating better and collaborating better and Etc.

08:04

Ramesh: So looks like the leaflet is probably the right thing to get started. So you've been in this business, been doing this for 20 plus years, so obviously you're well set. And then you also had couple of pivots you said. First you started with the hospitality industry and then afterwards you were doing other people's training and then now you settled on a custom training. And you also mentioned that you don't have a specific industry. So my question is how do the customers come to you or how do you build the customer pipeline?

08:42

Nanette: So I'm actually struggling right now, because I’ve done this. But an additional pivot, which is when I said I'm just going to focus on leadership training. That's not an industry I'm known in. I'm known for designing any kind of training. It's not a skill set that I'm known for. So I'm really starting my business over I feel. Finding new clientele because the fortune 500 are not my clientele anymore. They have their leadership departments, they have their training department, they have a protocol that they believe is working, although I don't believe it is. So I realized why I can't sell to them anymore because they don't really need my philosophy and the people who need my philosophy are smaller and medium sized businesses who probably haven't even thought about this. You know, right now there's such a problem with unemployment. Their biggest concern is, you know or lack of you know such low unemployment rate that their biggest concern is how do we get people in the door to do the work that we need to do. And so I don't think many small and medium sized businesses are looking to the future, because that's just so far off at this point. But you know, here I am raising the flag that goes, yeah but you have to start preparing for it today because we can't see you in 2030 going, Oh crap, we didn't have anybody left to lead this company.

09:55

Ramesh: Right, right. So that is very interesting. It looks like I caught you at a time of your career of the business in a while you're pivoting, I 100% agree with you. Is that the fortune 500, one of the companies that I worked for, I mean they go with the one of these larger I would say business school kind of a leadership development. They have their own internal in house kind of stuff. So given that I'm mean first actually let me ask you why you thought of pivoting to this area.

10:31

Nanette: I feel like it's a mission. I feel there's, I think it was Ray Dalio, but I'm not a hundred percent sure who said this, but there's like three phases in your life. There's the phase where you're learning the phase where you're earning in the phase where you're giving back. And I feel like I'm in the phase where I'm giving back now. Like this is and I love business. I am passionate about business. Like I just said to somebody the other day that I read inc magazine for pleasure. I mean, I don't read like fiction. I read business magazines for pleasure. That's what I get a thrill from. So I really feel like it's just such, this is going to be such a crisis and you know, honestly I’ll be out of the workforce probably by the time it hits. So it's not like it's going to affect me. I just feel like it's such a big problem that's coming down the pike. Nobody really looks to the future. I think that's a part of, you know how companies run with the stock market and all that. We can't work 10 years ahead, don't be ridiculous. We have to look like, you know, by the end of this year. That's as far ahead as we can look. And I just feel like I’ve gotten so much experience and knowledge and insight into what makes successful companies and successful leaders over the last 25 plus years, that this is what I'm doing to give back. So whether it makes me money or not is not the point. It's just helping companies to stay afloat. Cause I really think a lot of companies are just going to implode. You know, there's a lot of small and medium sized businesses out there that are run by the person who originally founded them and that person would like to retire, but often they can't because there's really nobody to step in. So that's one of the niche markets is, you know, are you approaching your seventies and you'd like to let go, but you can't, let's figure that out. Who can we get trained up?

12:03

Ramesh: So given that this is the time that you're trying to attract new clients and you're pivoting as well, so what strategies are you looking at in a building and promoting your busine

12:17

Nanette: Well in any industry, this is a hard market to sell to business people. Because even myself, when I find a vendor that I like, I stick with them forever, even if there's probably a better way to do it or more cost effective way to do. Like I know I just know how this program works or this vendor works and you know, I'm in my comfort zone. So it's tough to get people to even want to have a conversation with you. But my perspective has always been from the first day I was in business that you have to give an order to receive. And so when I was first starting my business, I spoke a lot for free. And I’ve said once like that said to one audience once, you know every time I speak it give me back exponentially and this one woman said, well zero times 10 is still zero. So that's really not the equation. But I do speak a lot for free because again, I feel like this is just a mission I'm on. I'd rather give you the Intel, even if you don't buy this solution, you should at least be aware of the situation. That's you know, you'd want to know if somebody was, if you're in a canoe and somebody telling you you're headed towards rapids right? I mean that's Kind of my philosophy. Like if you don't do anything about it, well you know at least I tried to help you. So that's Kind of my philosophy. So I do a lot of speaking. I speak at chambers of Commerce professional associations. I am very active on LinkedIn, which I really wasn't you know, I was a member. That's funny. Like when I look at my profile, it says I’ve been a member since 2009, like really? I don't even remember signing up for LinkedIn. So I’ve been a lot more active there, just like in terms of thought leadership and getting in front of the, hopefully people who might read one of my articles. And then I'm trying to do a lot with social media, which is something that I completely ignored as a phase for a long time. Because I just didn't think it was business. It was personal, right. And I ran a business, but now I realize how many companies are, if you're not on social media, you don't exist. Like one of my most successful marketing strategies in the 90s was my webpage. Like that just brought me tons of business because I was one of the few people that had a webpage at the time and I could look like a big company with my web page. You didn't know how big or how small I was and I mean that hasn't brought me business in years. So now I'm doing kind of the pivot there as well into social media and trying to be more, I mean one of the things that I don't love about social media is, it's hard to be a business without being a personality. And I spent 20 something years behind the veil of the training doctor where, you know, that was our corporate entity, but I think it worked because I worked for corporate America and you know, I really you have to develop more personal relationships with smaller and medium sized business people who have a real pulse on their organization. Because I mean this sounds terrible, but even training departments in corporate five hundreds are kind of removed from the operations. Like they still take their orders from somebody else. Like we need this training and then we farm it out to and the training doctor, whereas, you know a smaller or medium sized business fair hands in there with you saying, you know help me work this, you know, salvage my business. I don't mean to make it sound so dramatic, but you know help me figure this out so that we can continue to be successful. When you work for a fortune 500 company, you're never going to see the CEO. Although I did accidentally bump into Jack Welch once in the hallways at GE. That was like the most thrilling day of my life. I was coming out of a conference room and he was going into the one next to mine. I'm like, oh my gosh.

15:44

Ramesh: The management guru there. That's excellent. So you're doing the social media, you're trying to establish yourself as an authority. By the way, I saw your name referenced yesterday on LinkedIn. I think you are referenced in a Forbes article, so looks like it's working. So I looked as well. And by the way also I think nowadays it's all about personal branding. Other new thing that's happening out there. And then so let me get into a little bit of a publishing. So you publish a lot. And then you recently had a book, a future proofing your organization by teaching thinking skills. So what is that book about

16:25

Nanette: So that came out in 2018. So basically future-proofing organization by teaching thinking skills is my whole premise on leadership development. That basically we're not teaching thinking skills anymore. We're not teaching critical thought or decision making or problem solving, which are all leadership skills. And I found that future proofing your organization by teaching thinking skills was a highly offensive title. So I even pivoted off of that in just a year or two since that's been published because people think, oh well you know, why would you say that? We're not thinking like, well cause you're not, but all right, let me tell you that it's not, you're not developing leaders. It's the same thing. So it is basically, it's a giant sales letter, that book. Because it is my thinking and I have a overall curriculum design that I think would work for, I think would work, I know would work with organizations, but it's very immersive. It's a three year program and it has a lot of moving parts, but they're all integrated. Like, one of the problems I’ve seen in corporate America is like, let's say we send you to a course on decision making and you'll find out the four or five ways that decisions can be made. And then we just release you back into the wild and like, is there any possibility you're ever going to remember or apply the right decision making style at the right time three months from now when you have to make a decision? No. So what I do in my curriculum designs is integrate your decision making, learning with actual on the job application and over and over and over again. Because the only way for people to learn is through repetition. That's why you had English every single year from grade one to grade 12 right. But then we get to corporate America and we go, hey for four hours, you're good. You know how to do this now. So it's a very in meshed curriculum program where people will revisit the same topics over and over in different ways, in different situations and always with on the job application and always in conjunction with not only other people, cause I don't believe in e-learning because that's just self study and people aren't self directed enough to do that. So not only is the learning with other people, but it's other people within the organization, like lateral people, like I call them cohorts. Because I think one of the reasons we're not developing business people is because like if you're hired into a finance role, any training you will get from here on out will probably be finance. We're keeping you in a funnel or a silo. Like we're going to expand your skills in finance, but we're never going to teach you about the rest of the company. So if you put people into a finance course, but they're from HR and shipping and your route drivers and your operations people and your marketing people think, everybody can benefit from a course in finance or a course in decision making. And meanwhile, I'm also benefiting from the fact that I'm getting exposure to you in another department that I don't know anything about. But now you and I are developing a relationship. So as we grow up through the organization, you and I have been buddies for three, four or five years. We're more likely to work together, collaborate together, cooperate with one another. Because I know you as a, like you and I were saying earlier, it's personal relationship, right? I know you as a friend, I know you as a colleague and I also understand what your department does. That's not how training is typically done in an organization. We keep people in these silos and I think a lot of the reason that people leave companies is because they think, well, there's nowhere for me to grow except up. I think companies really do a poor job of saying, well why don't we send you over to marketing for six months, so you can see how they work and learn how we market this business. Like I think you would keep more people in your organization if you made, if you had lateral moves available to them. But that's not how corporations are typically set up.

20:08

Ramesh: So Nanette as you're pivoting right now, one part that came to my mind is that over the span of this 20 plus years that you've been in the business there'll be ups and downs like as every entrepreneur, right? We all have our ups and downs. Was there a time even now I would say that you think forget it. I don't want to do it. Let me get back to a comfortable, get a job kind of stuff. Or what are the thoughts that you had or how did you get through this downtimes

20:37

Nanette: Ah, well, you're right, there's been plenty of downtimes. There's been twice in my career where I was basically on the verge of bankruptcy. But no, I’ve never considered getting a real job cause that's not in my DNA. And I think that my father was self employed and that's the model I saw. So it's just in my, that's in my realm of possibility. I mean obviously you did have a job out of college. I worked in the hospitality industry. I was pretty autonomous in that job, so I was lucky in that regard. But no, I mean I just, I have a vision and I'm going to carry it out, whether there's anybody buying it or not. And my father was a salesman. He was a self employed salesman. So there was periods of feast and famine in that world as well. You know, like you just knew, even a lot of times people go, I didn't know we were poor. There were times, there were times where we had plenty of money and times where I, you know I knew that we didn't. And so that does not panic me. And I do have a lot of self-employed friends who always say to me, you know, how do you not panic? And I'm like, I don't know. That's just in my DNA to not panic, because I know it always turns around.

21:42

Ramesh: That's excellent. So I mean, I think you need to have that kind of a DNA to survive. And definitely you've been there 20 plus years, so obviously you withstood those times. So then let me ask you this question. I think there are a lot of things that we think about, I was also. So what do you think is a unique value proposition that you bring to your customers or to your profession?

22:05

Nanette: Well, so I think I’ve just developed my unique proposition in the last eight months. Actually this year I think is, I’ve finally developed it. If you were to Google or even go on LinkedIn and look for leadership development, you would find thousands and thousands and thousands of people that like I would never show up in that search. I would be so buried. Oh, I do know. But most people, most organizations that do leadership development do it on a small scale or a one to one kind of relationship. Whether that's, you know, coaching an executive at a company or just like I used to do going into a company and doing work for them. And I realized, you know, I’ve had a lot of introspection in the last few years and I realized that doing what I used to do for 20 plus years, where I would work with maybe three to five companies a year, designing customer curriculums for them, that's not reaching enough people. You know, I'm such on such a mission about this leadership precipice and there's such a, to me, tight deadline for that to get prepared for that in just 10 years. I realized I cannot impact enough people doing business the way I had been doing it. So for the first half or so of this year, I looked at how I work with a company. If I were to go in and sit with your organization and help you strategize your leadership development for the next three or five years, how could I basically, commoditize is not the word I'm looking for, but how could I re-imagine it so that I was doing it more in a public way and less as a one on one way. So I now offer these leadership development strategy sessions as workshops. I figured out a way to develop, to offer it as a workshop. So we have an online workshop that is four sessions online with me, but then a lot, a lot, a lot of homework or the same workshop, but it's done in two days in person where the client comes to us at our facility. But there's other clients there as well. So in the online workshop, I can have you know, say 60 individuals. I wouldn't want to do more than that because, then you really can't, you know then it's really me giving a webinar and that is so much, you know offering them consultative guidance. But then in the, in person when we do a max of six companies, because there is a lot of personal coaching from me and my associate as well as doing a lot of work on your own. So I mean, for instance the first session of the workshop as well, who's going to get the leadership training. So we know the boomers are leaving. Gen x chronologically would be the next leaders because that's, you know in terms of their age and how long they've been in the workforce. But there's not enough of them to fill all the leadership positions. It's a much smaller population than the boomers and the millennials. And then the Gen z's are joining us rapidly as well. So yes, chronologically it makes sense that Gen z or gen x would be the next population to ascend to leadership, but that might not be the right decision. Because they're going to also leave in the next few years. So maybe you want to get the next generation ready, because the millennial generation is huge. So I say to clients, you know, there's no right answer. There's no wrong answer. You have to figure that answer out for yourself. Who are you going to apply the training to. In the nets Ideal world, Everybody should get the training. The minute you walk in the door, you should be enrolled in a three year or a five year leadership development. We're not going to call it leadership development, then its just going to be business acumen development, right? Learn how to write an email. Learn how to behave in a meeting, all that kind of stuff. Learn not to have a verbal communication skills. Learn how to cooperate with others. Learn how to ask good questions. Nobody asks good questions. So, you know, I don't give the answers to anybody. I just say here's all the possibilities. You know, look at your own population. Who's going to cycle out in 10 years, who do have in the pipeline. If you don't have anybody in a succession plan, then you know what are you going to do? Are you going to keep hiring from outside? Beg, borrow. And steal from other employers. Because while that's possible, but it's not really, cause you can see right now we have a really low unemployment, right? So what you are doing is buying people. If you're going to get them all, you're just buying them. That's the only attraction you have right now is to dangle more money in front of them. So that's a losing proposition. But the problem with bringing people from the outside is then they come with their own set way of thinking and their own experience from their own, you know, from their past organization. And then they have to adapt to your culture or they try to change your culture. And so, you know, that doesn't always work to bring in people from the outside. So it would always be my advice to bring people up from the inside and expect that they're going to be there for their career.

Although we know with millennials that they say that's not true. They expect to have seven jobs in their lifetimes. But you know, zig Ziglar years ago said, what if I train them and they leave? And the opposite of that is what if I don't train them and they stay?

26:59

Ramesh: Yeah, that’s right, that’s right.

27:01

Nanette: So I would rather, I mean there's a possibility that you're going to train these people to be excellent leaders and they will leave you. And I think that's a price you'll just have to be willing to pay. Because so many people want professional development and like I said earlier, I think a lot of people just leave their role because they're like, well, I'm never going to go anywhere here. I can't go up. There's only three levels above me and there's not enough room up there. So I guess I have to go out. But if there was the ability to do lateral moves, if you knew more about how the business worked, you know, you just, if you knew you were going to get professional development, you would stick with that employer because you're going to get it here and nowhere else. Everywhere else you're going to have to keep switching jobs to develop yourself. Which is scary.

27:42

Ramesh: Yup. That's excellent Nanette. I think that's a very unique I think proposition that you have, which you brought to development across the company, across disciplines, functions kind of stuff. So as we wind down Nanette anything that we did not cover any last minute thoughts?

27:58

Nanette: No, I think I talked your ear off for 30 minutes Ramesh.

28:01

Ramesh: So last question. So you were executive assistant to Ronald McDonald in your past life at some point. Can we wind down our podcast with that?

28:11

Nanette: Nope I can, but I was not his executive assistant. So when I was a teenager I worked for a company that owned, I can't even remember how many stores, but they owned a whole bunch of McDonalds’ stores in three different states. And we had our own Ronald who would travel by motor home to all of the stores over the you know, during the summer it would be a different store every weekend. And the back of the motor home folded down and there was a little stage and he would put on a little show, we'd have kids come up from the audience, you know, put on grimace costumes and you'll have all sorts of games and stuff. And so it was a big deal to throw a party at a McDonalds’ site because Ronald himself was showing up. And so I was the one who would greet all the kids and make sure they got all settled and that they, you know I would introduce Ronald and it was so funny because I wasn't supposed to know who he was, but there was only one guy who traveled with the motor home. So like he'd come into the store and he'd go, okay Ronald is here. I was like, okay, 30 minutes, you know, and then we'd go out into the back park and I go like, oh, there is Ronald. I don't know that if it's that Guy is Steve who just came into Ronald's here. It was very funny.

29:19

Ramesh: That’s probably Very funny, I think this is like a very interesting job that you had. That's very good.

29:24

Nanette: Very interesting. I spent a lot of time on the road driving over three states.

29:28

Ramesh: So let's end this podcast. On that note.

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The post Building a Leadership Development Consultancy with Dr. Nanette Miner – AEP #30 appeared first on RameshDontha.com.

Building A Full Service Entertainment and Technology Agency with Larissa Lowthorp – AEP #29

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Guest: ​​Larissa Lowthorp
​Company / Business name: ​​​​​​TimeJump Media
Business web site​ ​ ​  | ​ LinkedIn ​ ​ | ​Instagram | Facebook

​Larissa Lowthorp is the founder, president of time jump media, which is a full-service agency that works in the entertainment industry. She's a designer, technologist, a screenwriter, emerging director and producer.

Tools / Books / Resources mentioned:

​Tools: Freelancer (Mac), Quickbooks, Canva, Pixabay, Pexels.Com

Show Notes:

Larissa Lowthorp started out as a consultant and freelancer offering her services to the entertainment industry in various roles as a screenwriter, designer, and technology and worked for 12+ years before she started a full-fledged business. 

Larissa talked about how she is building her current business by using referrals from her past life as a consultant. Larissa also talked about the challenges of switching from being a freelancer to a full fledged business with having to take decisions on type of corporation and number of sites needed.

Larissa talks about the importance of mentors and in her case the huge role played by her mentor. Larissa also talked about the significance of life events which were up and down and how they motivated her to pursue her entrepreneurial path. Larissa also talked about her mother and sister being great supporters of her work.

Larissa advises aspiring entrepreneurs to not have fear hold them back. Even though the overall entrepreneurial journey is overwhelming, takes it in bits and pieces.

Larissa talks about some important tools: Freelance on Mac is a good project management tool. Quickbooks is great for accounting. Larissa also mentioned stock photo sites like pixabay and pexels.com that she uses.

Larissa talks about some areas she’d have worked sooner. Being assertive and believing in herself much earlier than she did. Larissa is careful about  screening the customers and being firm when needed.

​Episode Transcript (Click to expand)

00:03

Ramesh: Hello everyone. Welcome to the agile entrepreneurial podcast. This is your host Ramesh Dantha. This podcast is about starting and building your own business with purpose, passion, perseverance, and possibilities. Today we have a very exciting guest works in an exciting industry, that's entertainment industry. So her name is Larissa Lowthorp.

00:49

Larissa: Hi Ramesh, thank you so much for having me.

00:51
Ramesh: So what is it that you cannot do? It looks like I talked about everything that you can do. Are there any things that you cannot do?

01:00

Larissa: Oh gosh, you are hitting it right away. I just come out and say it. I am dyslexic at math, so don't talk to me about math.

01:12

Ramesh: So let's talk about your business then now. What is time jump media?

01:16

Larissa: Time Jump media is a full-service agency. Working within the entertainment industry. We do work with all other types of industries, but we specialize in entertainment. We provide branding, digital strategy, web solutions, app development, video production. You name it, we do it.

01:41

Ramesh: Okay. So how long have you been in the business?

01:44

Larissa: Time jump was actually just incorporated this past October 2018 as a limited liability company, but it was founded about two years ago.

01:59

Ramesh: Okay. So what was going on between the two years when it was founded and then LLC of October 2018.

02:07

Larissa: You know, I have to be honest with you, I was a little bit scared. I've managed small businesses and online businesses for a number of years and time jump was, it was my idea to form an agency from a very long time ago, but I had a mental and emotional block towards starting it. And so two years ago I bought a nudge from a very dear friend of mine. His name is Gino McCoy. He's a film director, screenwriter. He's the CCO of gold dot entertainment. And he said, why don't you just do it? So I said, okay, you know, let's make this a reality. I was in the process of transitioning out of my nine to five job. But in that year and a half or so, between that time and when I incorporated it was pretty overwhelming. You know, I was afraid to find funding, startup funding, writing the business plan was very intimidating to me. So I had to work on it just a little bit every day. And then seeing that build piece by piece was very inspiring to me. I started reaching out to colleagues, professional, some of the best people in the industry that I knew to talk to them about it. See if they were interested in coming on board and just trying to fit all those puzzle pieces into place. So really working behind the scenes to get things set up.

03:48

Ramesh: Wow. So Larissa actually you, you're walking right into the methodology that I talk about starting a business, which is, you know, try to bite you know, some small chunks every day. So things are not overwhelming. It looks like you have really taken that approach. So when did you actually get a paying customer?

04:08

Larissa: You know, time jump itself does not have paying customers yet. I myself as a consultant have had paying customers over the past 10 or 12 years in my freelance business. And so what I'm doing is I'm working to transition some of these into time jump customers. And then what I'm going to do is I'm kind of implement my outreach and marketing plan to get those official time jump customers.

04:39

Ramesh: Wow. So the time jump was not your first business. You had a freelancing business for the last 10 to 12 years?

04:45
Larissa: Yes, yes. I've been on freelancing, I’ve been consulting, I’ve been doing all that on and off since about 1999 or 2000 in various forms. Time jump is a formalization of that.

05:04

Ramesh: Okay. So actually that makes more sense to me. So you've been an entrepreneur for at least 10 to 12 years, as a freelance business and all that stuff, but as a formalization into a company, an organization LLC happened over the last couple of years.

05:17

Larissa: Yes, yes, that's right. And I mean it's been such a learning curve because the process of actually incorporating and figuring out the taxes, the legal side of it, structuring it, getting business partners on board, that's all pretty new to me. I did have to rely pretty heavily on Gino McCoy to help advise me and guide me through. So hopefully this conversation could help, you know pay it forward and help other entrepreneurs do the same thing.

05:50

Ramesh: Excellent. Actually, so then how do you support yourself? Is it through your freelancing business you're supporting yourself as you are building time jump media?

05:59

Larissa: Yep. I'm working as a consultant for a fortune 100 company and I'm reinvesting that money into time jump and I'm working on building on time jam on the weekends, on the evenings and the side. You know, partnering on some really exciting projects.

06:26

Ramesh: Excellent. So well right now, I mean, do you say that you have a line of sight to getting a paying customer for time jump media or is still a work in progress?

06:37

Larissa: Absolutely. I have a definite line of sight towards getting my first paying customer. I'm both looking forward to it and I'm afraid of it. I feel like in some ways I am afraid of success. I feel like I have this inside of me where if I just unleash this, it's going to be really good and it's going to be really big. But I'm not sure what the outcome is going to be. And I find that that's stopping me in some ways. I'm trying to work through that.

07:09

Ramesh: Wow. Actually, this is a pretty good conversation because we are talking to a business owner who is actually you know, work in progress building the business. Excellent. So Larissa can you talk about how the journey of getting the paying customer like what things you have to do for the customer to trust in you and then say, okay, I’ll go with Larissa on time jump media.

07:33

Larissa: Well, I feel like on this part of the journey I actually do have a leg up. Because I have previous referrals. I have previous paying customers. I do have an established client base and established network that I have built a reputation with. And I have built relationships and cultivated those relationships with over the years. And so even in my work previously as a freelancer, previously as a consultant, in the future I can lean on my network for referrals to people that they might know if their own businesses need something else and things like that. And so that is probably going to be my first line of attack when it comes to getting those first customers. And then I would pair that with you know, probably some more cold calling, cold emails and I'm putting feelers out there. So it would be a hybrid approach.

08:35

Ramesh: Oh, excellent. So in the last couple of years or so as you've been thinking about formalizing this company, what specific areas really held you back or you know, took longest time. Was it an incorporation piece of it or legal, funding? Trying to figure out your pricing? Can you talk which elements really were the hardest nuts to crack?

09:02

Larissa: Gosh, that's a tough question, because they all pose their own unique challenges. I'm going to start with incorporation itself. Because once I got, I began researching it, things began to fall into place, but I'm mobile. So I personally am based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. But you know, we have satellite agencies in Los Angeles, satellite agencies in Toronto, Ontario. And so it was a lot of research to figure out where should we incorporate. What's best for our goals, what's best for our tax purposes. What's best for the type of company we do. Do we do an LLC, do we do a subchapter S? So kind of where do we want to go. There was a period when I was exploring a partnership with another person and that ended up not working out for that person. Hopefully she will you know, come on board and be able to lend her expertise in the future. But so that wasn't so difficult as much as it was time and research invested. When, once again, I have to think Gino McCoy for helping me through that. He'd put me on to a lot of good research about the best places to incorporate. He had previously done that with his company. Gold Dot. So that advice was really invaluable.

10:45

Ramesh: Wow. Excellent. I mean I also based on recommendation; I’ll get Gino onto this podcast show one of these days. It looks like he's got a lot of knowledge behind him.

10:56

Larissa: Absolutely. Absolutely. He would definitely be a help to any entrepreneur looking to get their, get their business off the ground.

11:06

Ramesh: Alright, so let's talk a little bit about you. Why did you have this drive? Like why you want to have your own company and why don't you go work for somebody else and live happily ever after?

11:22

Larissa: Well, I have always thought that I would be an entrepreneur one day. My parents were entrepreneurs. They opened their own business a few years before I was born. So I’ve been exposed to that lifestyle in that environment all my life. It was kind of a given that myself or my sister would take over their company at one point when they retired. And so I feel like, you know, in some ways I was encouraged you know, to pursue my entrepreneurial spirit from a very young age. So, you know, I would have stands out in my yard and I would sell toys, I would sell whatever. I was a very creative child. I was always making things. I sold jewelry to local customers. It got picked up by a local art galleries. So it's just kind of built throughout my life. Well then it happened, I didn't know where to get started. You know, once I'd graduated from high school, I had been a university student. I had to drop out when my dad got sick. So I kind of shifted focus and I shifted plans and I'm going to take you now back to your previous question about the hardest things to get started, because really the hardest thing for me has been to secure some startup funding and investments. And this has been the case for a number of years. Even when I was starting out as a freelancer, I'm starting out as a consultant. So I put this plan in place that maybe I could get a corporate job and I could work my way up the corporate ladder and save away enough money that one day I could start this this big company. I had a vision of kind of a, a conglomerate company that did many different things. So the evolution of time jump is an aspect of that. So really kind of how I got here is I’ve been working in the corporate environment for the last 10 to 12 years. Back about four years ago, I got very restless in my corporate job. I left it and since then I’ve been working toward what eventually was to become time jump.

14:06

Ramesh: Excellent. Thank you very much. I mean that is an interesting journey there. So I'm thinking that there is probably some story behind time jump the name.

14:17

Larissa: Yeah. Actually, it's funny that you've asked. Because I always have a hundred ideas for everything, but somehow I was having a lot of trouble with choosing a name for my company. So once again, I have to bring up Gino McCoy because we were having a phone conversation and I was very excited. I'm like, let's get this off the ground. You know, that I got to do this, I have to do this. I was so jazzed and so pumped up to do this. I said, I don't what to call it. I wanted to buy my domain name, so that I could set up a website. And he said, well what's your favorite animal? And I said, kangaroo. And then he said, what's your favorite aspect of outer space? Because he and I are both outer space geeks and I said, time warps. Because I love star Trek. So he said, well how about calling it time jump?

15:21

Ramesh: Wow, That's good. So a couple of things that you really like and then put them together. That is so very, very creative. And then also very personal as well.

15:30

Larissa: It is a very personal, and you know, I’ll be honest with you, I wasn't entirely sure about the name. It was so unique. So I thought of a few different names, but I kept coming back around to time jump. Because like you said, it has that personal connection and I just love that and I think too, it works for the vision of the company because my company is about stepping customers forward and getting them, you know ahead of the curve and ahead of their competition so that they can really meet their customer's needs. And I think any business that a person forms the name is so important. It has to convey so many nuanced things.

16:19

Ramesh: Yup. Yup. So actually that is very good. So let me talk a little bit about the customer pipeline and then the customer itself. So typically what is the starting point for your work with the customer? Is it like they'll come to you and say, build me a web design, website? Or how does it start?

16:40

Larissa: There's a few different ways that it starts. Usually I will have a potential client come to me who has a very definite idea of what they say they want. And a lot of times this client has previously worked with a designer, previously worked with an agency and for whatever reason it wasn't working out for them anymore and they needed to change. And so they'll tell me, their backstory, I will listen. And then once we start working through it, we'll have a consultation, we'll have a conversation, and then it's kind of a matter of reading between the lines. Like you are telling me that this is what you need and this is what you wanted, but you weren't satisfied with your results. So why aren't you satisfied? And the answers that they give are not what they think the solution should be. Very seldom. So I help them to read between the lines to find a new solution and a new approach for services that really work for them and meet their goals. And I try to work with them and educate them throughout the entire process that we're working together.

17:59

Ramesh: It's really a very consultative process that you're taking. So let me ask you this question. Typically how do your potential customers find you? Like what kinds of promotional strategies that you've been working on that are working out in a way that the customers are finding you?

18:20

Larissa: Well I have to say for time jump, I have not implemented my promotional strategy in full force yet. And so I have been getting a number of queries through my websites. I have social media channels set up that people are finding me through. And then again, it's word of mouth Ramesh, it's word of mouth. My previous clients, the past several years I have been traveling to film festivals and film markets throughout the world. Those are great for networking. Those are great for finding people who were missing a link between their analog services and their digital services. Because I have noticed that film in particular, many processes are still analog. And so these people that I met, I can then reached back out to and say, Hey, you know, I noticed this and you told me you're trying to do that. Would you be interested in talking? So personal outreach really works best for time jump because of the bespoke nature of our services.

19:29

Ramesh: I see. So one thing I'm still trying to understand because you had a freelance business, you've been a consultant, so in some ways you are in business for yourself for quite some time. But how is time jumper as a company different from your freelancing business and consulting, especially given that you're getting referrals from your prior freelance and consulting business anyway.

19:52

Larissa: Time Jump as a company is different because my hope is to do that full time. You know, it's going to, the goal is that it will afford me the freedom of time. It will afford me the freedom of finance to be able to do what I love, which is to go travel, to go explore, to do, you know activism, community outreach. I recently started a humanitarian organization called Pen power, which helps female entrepreneurs throughout the globe to access crowd resourced tools to improve their businesses from micro entrepreneurs all the way up to you know C suite entrepreneurs. So it's really an Avenue to pursue my personal passions without being tied down to a nine to five Monday through Friday job that I have to stay in one location for.

20:59

Ramesh: Got it. Okay. So I understand that. So as you look through the journey like what are the things that you could offer to other aspiring entrepreneurs? So what is that you would tell about if they want to start a business?

21:18

Larissa: Oh gosh, I'm so happy you asked. Well, first of all, I hope that they could go on my website or go on my Facebook or Instagram and reach out to me and we could start talking. I would suggest do it. Don't let fear hold you back. I did that even though I had been, you know, freelancing and consulting, somehow the step of formalizing it into a company and saying, I want this, I want the freedom of you know, managing my own company versus letting somebody else manage me. That was a difficult bet for me. So just do it. And if it seems overwhelming, take it in small bites and this is what you teach, which is wonderful. And I’ve been spending a lot of time on your website, because I tend to think so big picture. It was really a practice to discipline myself and jewel little bit by bit by bit.

22:21

Ramesh: I see. So Larissa as you are building your business I'm assuming that you are going through selecting some tools that will help you in various aspects, whether it's legal accounting or whatever, whatever. So I mean, what are the kinds of tools that you're using other people can say, Oh yes, those are the good tools that I should look at as well.

22:45

Larissa: I would say, you know, first and foremost, invest in a really good project management software. I believe there's one for Mac computers, it is called freelance. It lets you, you know it lets you keep a portfolio of your clients, your project history, your invoice numbers, the billing dates, the payments, everything like that. You can get one of those that fully integrated into in account management software like QuickBooks. That's great. I would say you know get that all squared away, so that you don't have to get muddy down and doing, you know back paperwork all of the time and you can just focus on moving your business forward.

23:35
Ramesh: Okay. So a freelance is one. And then the accounting one, I mean are there any tools that you use for your design work and then things like that?

23:45

Larissa: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm always trying new ones. I mean, as far as web design goes, Jovi creative suites. They have, you know, their cloud based system. Get a good package for stock photos. There are some really good free stock photo websites like pixabay.com, pexels.com, they have very high quality photos. That is really going to make or break your project. If you're putting together an RFP, a request for proposal or a concept development. I mean, the images, I have seen firsthand that quality images can make or break whether or not a client decides to go with you.

24:35

Ramesh: Wow. So I'm familiar with the Pixabay and then those kinds of sites as well. I agree with you that some of the media and by the way, I use like Canva kind of stuff where I use for some design work as well.

24:47

Larissa: Canva is a great tool.

24:50
Ramesh: Yeah, exactly. So and then I know you talked a few times about Gino who really inspired and who helped you. So likewise , are there any other people one beyond Gino that inspired you in your life?

25:05

Larissa: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, my mother was a huge inspiration. She is a writer. She and I actually wrote a screenplay together. My mom and my sister in particular, they always wanted me to cultivate my creativity. My father as well. You know, my family has gone through probably like most families. My family has gone through some really hard times together. Internal family struggles. But one thing that they've always encouraged me to do is be myself and believe in myself. And that really meant so much to me.

25:51

Ramesh: Excellent. So likewise, are there any books or any movies or anything that inspired you? That you keep going back to make sure that you know, this path progresses?

26:04

Larissa: Yeah, I feel like I should have an answer to that. And now that you asked me, I can't think of any. I'm looking forward to your upcoming book. I'm definitely going to read that when it comes out. But I try and take inspiration from everything and any little thing and sometimes I don't realize until after when something in particular has inspired me. Kind of a funny thing that I’ve been thinking about doing lately as taking some improv classes. Just to help with my personal communication skills. Especially if as time jump moves forward, I am going to be trying to do more of that face to face networking. I think that could really help.

26:55

Ramesh: So that's excellent. So Larissa a couple of questions more before we end the podcast. So one question is, if you were to go back and restart, right, so restart even the freelance business or restart the time jump, what kinds of things that you've learned that you would do differently?

27:15

Larissa: Oh gosh. I would be more assertive in my favor. I feel like, especially when I was first starting out as a freelance and as a consultant, I let other people's opinions shape my actions a little bit too much. And so again, I would believe in myself more. I would have more confidence. That was a really hard one. But you know, and stand up for yourself. Sometimes you get clients who want the moon and they don't want to you know pay formally for their demands. And so yes, like customer service and satisfaction is very, very, very important. But you also need to learn how to set your limits and be firm with customers yet tactful.

28:16

Ramesh: Yeah, I know about those kinds of customers. One of the podcasts guests that I had previously said she would fire those kinds of bad clients.

28:25

Larissa: I've had to do that once or twice in my career and it's never fun.

28:29

Ramesh: It's never fun. Yeah, I agree with you. So the last one. Anything that we have not discussed, any information that you wanted to share that, but we didn't get to as we close the podcast.

28:39

Larissa: I don't think so Ramesh. This was just so wonderful to speak with you and thank you so much for having me on.

28:46

Ramesh: Thank you very much. I mean, you have a very, very interesting and fascinating story. I'm so honored to talk to you, Larissa. Best of luck with time jump media. Looking at the kind of mentors that you have, looks like all good things will happen to you.

29:01

Larissa: Thank you. You as well. I'm really excited for your release of the agile entrepreneur and I will definitely put it on my preorder list.

29:12

Ramesh: Thank you. Thank you.

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The post Building A Full Service Entertainment and Technology Agency with Larissa Lowthorp – AEP #29 appeared first on RameshDontha.com.