I can go. Awesome. I wanted to dig in a little bit more with what I shared yesterday about the taxes thing because it felt like but I got my tax bill last year we got money back because I made like no money. So this year I Oh, and my first thought was like, crap, but then like it was, I mean, it's a big number, but it's not that big of a number. And so then I was like, Listen, you didn't pay taxes on a year.
You made
almost twice as much as the year before. So like, of course, you're gonna have to pay taxes. And I was like, and basically it's like one website project. So just go find another website project. Save better next year.
I love that. Yeah, it's like you would have been paying taxes on that all year. Long or now like, yeah, so congratulations, in your business to pay.
And I had you in my head because I kept coming back with questions while they're doing it all for me. I was like, oh, no, they're judging me. And I was like, no, they're not like people are asking questions because they need to ask questions like stop.
Yeah,
they look at you as the expert.
Yeah, of like, what I'm doing in my business and I was like, Well, I don't know if I'm know what I'm doing in my business.
You don't have to know you can just say, well, this is what I'm doing.
Yeah. Like so that's awesome. Good
for you.
Thanks. Yeah, it was like I would notice that it was like such a quick reframe from being like so panicked about money to be like, No, this is fine.
Like, that's the point right like with the with the next level thought creation or the mind trash makeover tool. It's not like you're never going to have it happen again. It's how long do you stay in the left column of creating unwanted results, to move yourself into creating wanted results. Or at least neutralizing in the middle column? Right, like, so. Look at you. Kayla wins. running a successful business while not messing missing any powder days. I love that's amazing. That's so good. Also, being told I was impressive during and again after a concert where the client tried to give me their credit card number for their premium package without even knowing the price seriously. That's so awesome. How did you create that out? I don't know if you're like able to unmute but like how did you create that?
It was actually a referral from the person's brother who didn't even remember that. They had a website. So that was funny
because he was a man, but I was question it might come across as some kind of woowoo but I've gotten great responses from it. Like, Wow, I love that question. I'm going to steal it. I'm going to start asking my clients that as well. And I was like, sounds great. Good. Go for it. And then I was explaining the processes of my packages and how they worked. He said, Well, which one do you think that I fit into? Like, the premium and he's like, Well, I'll get you my credit right now. And I was like, I'm still going to put together some packages for you, but thank you
it's like just take my money. Like, let's like wrap it up. Take my money.
Yeah, part of you was like, I want to take your credit card, but also, there's other reason for the package matrix.
Right, exactly. You need to see this. Yeah.
Yeah, I need you to know my boundaries still.
Yes, exactly. I love it. So have you booked it yet? Or is it like in process?
I have to send him I told him five to 10 business days because I'm busy and tired.
Having fun in the snow, so
Exactly.
Yes, I just love how you're just like yeah, cool. Like living my life. I'll get that get that to you when I get that too. Like amazing.
Congratulate might not it might not work but you know, but just the just the console and hearing that was great. So
yeah, yeah, but like, I your core value is freedom and you're designing your business. around that. And you weren't like, oh, I need like, let me just hurry up and write down your credit card number so I could like, you're like, oh, no, this has to fit with me too. Like, yeah, that's what I that's Yeah, that's so awesome. I think. Congratulations. We got rid of her PETA client, Ansel, my previous company. I'm not coming back and I couldn't have done it without you guys. Lee. I mean, bold moose. Seriously. Congratulations. Like how did the PETA client firing go?
So I did everything right after our call last
one. Love is just like, rip the band aid off. I like
wouldn't hit my punching bag. And I was like, let's do it. And I had a clutch out latte and I was like, nervous. You know, I was like, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do it. All like, in like one go, cuz I don't want to do this on two days. So I like call my previous boss and I was like, yeah, not coming back. And they were like, okay, cool. And then I was like, gonna go send the email. And so I just sent it and she I mean, she responded like, oh, I would have you know, that's that's such a disappointment. I would have paid you like an emergency fee. I rarely asked these things of you and I was like, whatever it makes you feel better. About yourself, but we're done. So I like created a folder in my inbox. So I don't even see her emails anymore. They just go into the folder and then Jamie who I heard is going to check it every now and then. So like I don't ever have to even see anything triggering which is awesome.
Ah,
that is amazing. I got an email on Friday that said urgent, urgent requests in all capital letters from an old client from when I was still doing one on one client work. That was like telling me all of these things going on and like whatever and saying I have always I love I love when people are like, I know this is your boundary, but will you just break it for me? So it's like, I know that you're not doing client work anymore, but I'd be willing to pay you for this and I'd be willing to pay you for consulting, too. Advise the person that I'm haven't hired yet. In the past however many years since I said I wasn't working for her anymore. To do this, I was just like, I'm not for hire like this is it it's not possible for you to hire me. You know, it's just like, so I got that urgent request on Friday afternoon and I was just like, it might be urgent for you but it's not urgent for me. So I read the email and normally I would have just ruminated on it all weekend. I just didn't even ruminate it on like I just was like, oh, that's in there. I'll take care of that Monday. And then on Monday, I was just like I was also just like, and I don't make direct referrals to anyone in the web designer Academy because I want to maintain impartiality. I don't want to like you know, I'm also I'm like an because like you would be a nightmare. And I'd have to like Coach everybody on boundaries with you if anyone hired you.
Um, so
anyway, like it just felt so good to just be like, you can offer me money but like, that's not something I offer. Like it's just not it's not happening. So it's just, I can I feel you in terms of people just being like, Oh, I'll offer to pay you like that's the most important thing. It's like no, like, you could not pay me enough to set aside my time for you and my emotional energy for you and it doesn't stop here. Like this is just one out of so many things. So she is one of the clients I'm like, she is one that like really like, helped me create the processes that I teach here. So I'm so grateful for her because she put me through the wringer. And it's allowing me to help so many other people. But that does not mean I'm going to touch her website with a 10 foot pole. It's just not happening.
That's how so this client emailed me the next day and she's like, I forgot she had a credit. She's like, you can either refund me or you can do like some of the projects we talked about for March and I was like where's the refund button? I was like, I didn't even reply I just like refund I don't want your money. I don't want you but then like the next day Jamie and I like reviewed all the contracts with her in mind. And it's like, you know, those are very painful experiences, but I also feel so much more protected now. And and just like my eyes are more open to what could happen because she was a great client that just went south like and so you know, I'm just not going to go into any any any client engagement without full protection.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's like there is stuff to be learned from these scenarios once you can get through the emotions of it. So awesome. Cory said thankful for creating this business that gives me such awesome flexibility got to see with my daughter on Monday, lots of travel plans coming up and contracts for two new sites in the next month. Like Corey thought it's just it's beautiful to see like how you came in just like hey, I want to do this. You know what, like, a year and a half, two years ago, and now you're like, contracts skiing like time with my daughter in my in my, my shed or what do you call it your shed quarters? Your shed quarters that you built from scratch by yourself? Like for amazing. Thanks, that you guys this is like next level is the best. I love it. Erica got the first round of feedback on the course of course creation that you're developing for clients or in education space. These are people with advanced degrees in education and curriculum development. I often feel like why are they asking me for help? Their feedback was incredible and so kind and they asked for no changes, answered the question Erica, why are they asking you for help?
The head on
that makes me really uncomfortable to answer
I don't know what
to say. Think about that. That is like at that is obviously like a next level of growth opportunity for you. Not only what is the answer to that question when you're questioning yourself like that, but then why does it make you feel uncomfortable to answer? Yeah,
it's yeah, it's wild. i When I'm with them, I often feel like I like and again, this is just the thing that comes up but I often feel like I don't belong in the room because they are just like, I'm like listening to these conversations. And I'm like, wow, these people are so incredibly smart. So it just feels really strange. And when I submitted it, you know, I was very, very nervous. Just thinking like, oh, I probably you know, did something wrong or like didn't explain something well, or whatever. And it was that was not at all what they had to say. So yeah, I need to dive into that.
The thought that came into my mind is like yeah, they are brilliant. They hired you to do this. Like they must be pretty smart. Like that's what popped into my head but yeah, I do think there's something. I mean, it might be related to things that you already know, it might be related to things that you haven't yet discovered. So I think there's an opportunity there for you to practicing yourself how others might see that you don't realize that they see you that way.
Noted
ah,
Tiffany, I love the mindset shift that I've made away from feeling like the client is doing me a favor by hiring me and not working with clients who come to me with that attitude. Yes.
Ah, okay, who needs coaching today or who has a topic like a bottleneck? In their business that they'd like to discuss?
Caitlin,
and remember, this is like, open, open to all so
so I was wondering who I know that a couple people have like employees now who has a VA or like an EA or somebody that sort of helps. Does that help? I feel like I'm constantly in part of me thinks it's all in my own spinning wheels. And I'm trying to work through that too. But like, just the constant like okay, I need to send this person an email. I need to send this invoice. I need to make sure that I got paid. You know, it's time for them to check in and if they've done their project plan, like all those little things. And so again, like it's all things I can do, I just don't know if I'm getting to that point where I should look at getting some help. And
what should I do?
I have thoughts I'm gonna let y'all jump in that have that have that are working with somebody.
I literally wrote like five pages of notes on like a hiring process. That like is kind of, you know, during one of my coffee fueled morning journaling sessions, so I'm looking for those well.
I have a
VA that I hire for one specific project. And it's just kind of the tedious little things that I know she'd be if she's really detail oriented, but it's it's not really what you're talking about. So I don't have experience but that sounds like an amazing idea.
Yeah, that's that's a really good question. Because the stuff that you mentioned is probably the same for all of us. All the things we hate doing. We don't want to do it but I mean, we've got it's got to get done and you can't get your the fun stuff, you know, stuff you like working on, it's hard to get. And I personally I had no wish I didn't want to hire any employees because you know, I just want to just want to be have that freedom and I don't want the responsibility. You know, I thought I did a few years ago but now I'm thinking now. So the only one I would say I have hired is a bookkeeper. And so she's she's she's not my employee, I'm actually her client or whatever. Um, so she takes care of a lot of that stuff for me. You know, I set the emails and stuff like that so I don't know that's, that's one less thing because she also like every month every quarter, all those kinds of thing she figures out how much I had to do pay the state and sales tax. So you know, there's little things like admin type things that she does that gets that off on my you know, plate or whatever. So maybe that's an option.
Yeah, yeah, I do currently
at VA at some point, but, you know, I know because, oh, go ahead.
I just think about like, even just like, again, I don't want to be an employee. It would definitely be like a contractor or something that like, you're just like five hours a week what they could do for me, like but again, it's like I don't know if that's worth it. I don't know if I if I you know, I don't know if it's like just keep honing in on the templates and the systems and just keep going. I don't know.
I would. So my recommendation is to let me frickin find this page. But one, figure out what a budget is that you would want to pay someone because if it's a contractor, it's not like you get to determine their rate, they get to determine their rate and you get to decide if that is within your budget. So I would figure out okay, like, based on you know, because we talked about last week, you know, Leah sharing her amazing spreadsheet like looking at like, okay, what can I reasonably pay for this? I think when it comes to like hiring, one of the things that oh my god, I finally freaking found it. Okay, what are the things that I would want? So like step one, making the decision to hire right? Things to consider? Am I paying myself a consistent, sustainable salary? Like that's first thing and not to say that this is going to determine whether you're you make the decision or not, but like, am I paying myself a consistent consistently a sustainable salary? Am I consistently booking new clients and consistently is a relative term right? Is it like have you gotten over this hump of like year one web designer Academy where you're just like, I don't know how to book clients, like if you have you gotten that out, gotten over that you know, what to do, you know? And what are the bottlenecks in my business right now, which I think you identified and are those even things that my business needs to be doing? Because a lot of times I hear people say, outsource XYZ and it's just like, is XYZ something that I even need to be doing? In your case? Yes, like it does sound like XYZ is something that you need to be doing but that's just like a little checkpoint. One of the early mistakes that I made in my business was hiring, hiring to do things or outsourcing to do things that like weren't really relevant or affecting my my bottom line.
Yeah, so like social media that was always like the one in my head like that.
over social media, it's like, is that the most effective use of your revenue? Like have your have your, you know, time and money? And then I have some more questions, but they're not necessarily like super relevant in this conversation. So the check point is like, is it more profitable and sustainable to just not do these things that I want to hire someone else to do or to find someone to do them for me? Right, so like, Justin, that question just came up for me was was like the free five day website challenge. I was outsourcing like, there was a lot of expenses related to that, and I'm like, it's more profitable and sustainable to just shut that down than to pay it and keep running it. And then the next question hire a company to provide me a service hire a contractor or hire an employee.
So
existing service that I can outsource to thinking of like, Go WP like how Rachel and some of you guys use that for like maintenance and a VA agency or something like that, or do you need to find your own contractor? And then like the difference between a contractor and an employee is like a contractor brings, like their systems and processes to you and then like, applies their expertise to your business, whereas an employee like follows your systems and processes. And that's This is like the technical definition. I wouldn't take this as as legal advice, but like an employee works. At the direction of the employer under the policies and things of the like, policies and work hours and like at the direction of on company timelines, and like, all of that stuff. Whereas a contractor works on their own terms and it just depends on the employee employer relationship, because I like to have a very flexible arrangement with with our team but they have also have multiple clients and, you know, they work on their terms and timelines, you know, they can agree to your deadlines and everything. And the contractor dictates that the rate
so
that's kind of where it's like, you know, you know, it's a contractor you know, it's like five hours a week, you know, that it would be all of this, all of this admin stuff.
That
it would just free up your time. And I think the other checkpoint that I would mention is like, do you have mind trash around all of that stuff that you're trying to like, push off on to somebody else? I think so. Because you just don't want to deal with your mind trash round. That be aware of that because I'm hiring you're still gonna have to make decisions when this VA says hey, such and such didn't get their stuff on time. And now you still have to like you still, as the business owner have to deal with the emotional part of making those decisions, even if you're not actually being the one to communicate about them. So I think that that's kind of one of the other things to consider is like, what is the real problem that you are trying to solve? I'm totally down with like hiring to like help with that stuff. 1,000% I think it's smart. And I think it's smart to do it now and build a relationship with someone now, so that you can increase it as things grow and you know, you find the right person and they can help you with all kinds of stuff that like, maybe you wouldn't have expected.
But like, what is it
that you're really trying? What problem are you really trying to solve? For some people it could be like literally just bandwidth and I don't want to do that stuff and I hate it. Some people can be like, I just don't like want to deal with these parts and I want someone else to like be the bad guy or whatever.
Like so just things to consider. Yep.
Thank you.
Welcome. Um, I think a contract
roll is also like a great way to just try out like to have like a month to month agreement or three months or something like that. And I also think like, it's good to have some systems and it does like kind of make you have to sit down and be like, What is my process for this? Like, what will I tell them to do in this situation? And then it almost is an opportunity for you to just like, make some decisions once and for all about how things get handled, so that your contractor knows what to do. Instead of being like, back and forth on stuff, yeah, Kayla.
I was just going to sort of expand on what I wrote in the chat in that if you were to make, start making a list of everything that you do in your process and what order you do it in. For example, I'm using an air table right now. So I have a column that says whether it's manual or automated, I have a column of say that says what's happening, what I want to happen, the priority of it, how how pressing it is. And then I was just just listening to you guys talk. I was thinking you could totally have a column that says like, whether you like to do the task or not and I think not only will that helped me look back and say like okay, here's like eight things that I am not able to automate that I could hire out. But it also would help you because if you do hire someone, you have to explain to them everything that you want done in the way that you want it done. And so having that list would tell them what needed to be done and it would have all the details surrounding it, what order it was done, and it's sort of like the beginning of an SOP for someone. If you are if you're going that direction
and
I think and I've shared this with a couple of people in here too. I think it's important to like imagine the type of person
that you want like what
and this is going more maybe towards employee or a longer term contractor. But like, what is what characteristics would you like them to have that maybe like that are important to to that role?
You know, like,
when I was when I was hiring Ali and Erica like one of the things was like Oh, I like I want
like
someone who's like very resourceful and like figures things out on their own. And like all of those things, you know, when I was looking at like, what is this? What is the characteristic of this person? And so, you know, even if you don't write it in your like requests for, you know, contractors or something you could imagine like, oh, I want somebody who like just is cool to just tell someone how it is and they don't like need a whole lot of like, assurance from me that it's okay that like if this client gets mad or something that like they just don't, you know, they are not like very much affected by that or something like that, you know, someone that can like navigate difficult conversations with ease or you know, something like that.
Um,
what hesitations do you have about hiring I heard Janet say something that I thought was interesting. Like, I used to think that I wanted employees, but now I don't because I just don't want the responsibility. I want the freedom. And I just want to share that like anytime I've had people on my team, it has created freedom for me, like
and before employees
even with contractors, you know, it has created freedom I just had to manage my mind around the risk responsibility. The pressure I was placing on myself that like was wholly unnecessary that I had like worked through in this first year of like having having employees
which was fascinating because like, it wasn't
like it was any different transactionally from having contractors. Literally like if you looked at like nothing but the facts of money coming in and out nothing was different. It was literally just the thought Yeah. So I just invite you to explore what you would make it me and having other people on your team. I think that
the idea of having again, like I have I have constant bills anyway, but that idea of because I'm a service provider versus like, in this again, this is probably very much my interest was about to come out my mouth, but like you have a program that people sign up for for a year.
I have
six to eight weeks, sometimes three months, like and then I have to go find more. And so that idea of like, what if I don't find one enough, is that cashflow thing and so in my head I'm like, Will I ever be able to have a consistent business to like, buy a bigger house to do all this stuff that like requires, like, Do you know what I mean? Where it's like the lump sum at the end of the year was like, decent but like through the whole last year. I was like, I don't know what's gonna happen next. And I don't think I ever will add a project based business
I'm so curious what the rest of you guys think about that. I mean, I have I have like I will I'll jump in and share but I want to like let you guys jump in on that.
My only thought is like creating runway and like creating, like savings before making the decision to hire so that it's funded ahead of time. And then, you know, continuing on and getting clients and then you have an idea of like oh, this is like going to work and I like you know, you continue to or like oh, maybe I need to make some changes. I don't know.
Yeah, I think that
there's some underlying fear that it's all gonna fall apart even though at the moment I'd have no proof of that but because it is and again, I mean, I guess everyone could cancel out WGA tomorrow I don't know. Just like you don't mean where you have such like a sustainable like, it's one year. I don't know. And yeah, this is me. Probably projecting on to you. What I think versus your business model versus my business model.
Erica said but what if it works?
I literally wrote that down in my morning journaling this morning as like I keep having this whisper of like, but what if this all works instead? Of like all the reasons it won't work.
So just just for full transparency with like my business model, right. Like, up until this launch, which I'm doing in March, I've done 12 months like I've offered 12 month payment plans, there became a point at which that has become unsustainable for me to let people spread their payments out over 12 months. Because that then means the bar like now I like I need to have X number of people enroll at that payment plan in order to like create that consistent revenue for that amount of time and what and so just in evaluating everything like even looking at like even looking at that it's not like the panacea or the solution that everybody thinks it is to be like, Oh, just you know, get this many people with recurring revenue coming in and then you don't have to like think about it. I still I have the same a, I still have to market create relationships, create demand for our program. Make offers just the same as you guys do. It just is that I do it a little bit differently on a one to many scale. And I can literally never predict what's going to happen. In October I opened the doors to the web designer Academy and zero people enrolled. In December, I opened the doors again and we had 10 people enroll and we had about 50% pay in full and 50% do a payment plan. And so when I'm looking at like predictability and stability, I'm in the same boat as you guys. I literally don't know if people are gonna say yes and when people sign up for payment plans, even though they sign a contract. I can't count on them paying me and people do default and leave the program. And so I understand. I don't want you to use my business model as like a well I don't know how I'm going to
ever, you know,
do this consistently. I think it's a matter of like what parts are you in control of doing consistently? Yeah.
And I think that that's it's the same as like you see people on social media and you think that they're all doing 18 times better than you or you'll never figure it out and so again, like I'm not trying to say that like I don't know, the seeds of doubt about my business versus your business, but it's just, you know,
it kind of goes back to like what I was talking about yesterday with results math versus goal math. Like if you we can, like yes, we have businesses to run and money to make and this is the place I think where like we talk about those nitty gritty things of like the back end of the business, like behind the scenes and all of that stuff. But the most important thing to focus on really when it comes to like booking projects is like your clients results. Like if it's coming if if your outreach is coming from a place of I need money. Yeah, like that's not it's not your clients responsibility to like, give you money so that you can run your like, you know, that was like a it's something that still like percolating it's definitely going to become a podcast episode because whenever I focus on numbers, whether it's subscribers, people signed up for the summit, people signed up for a webinar. And I don't focus on like what's possible for those people who are there? Like my results are completely different. I have eight years of pattern to show that and probably 10 different podcasts I wrote when I realized that again for the time so
yeah.
Anyone else want to jump in on this?
I was just gonna say that I've started kind of viewing my like my investment in my employee, kind of how I view and I don't know if this is the right way or not, but so I offer conversion rate optimization, right? And so, like every month, okay, there may be investing in Google ads and social media as an SEO referral traffic and so like, I build dashboards for them and so we look and see okay, what's working, what's not what's driving an investment and, and then make make changes and so the way I see have an employee now is like it's going to constantly evolve and so I'm going to continually assess like, okay, is this investment helping to drive additional revenue? And if not, then I need to continuously analyze that like I would for my clients and say, okay, is this because I'm not focusing on sales is this because I have my employee doing the wrong things for my business, and I just see it now as more of a continual process than just like a one time decision, like I'm going to hire this employee and it's either gonna work or it's not. And like, if I'm not if that investment is not driving incremental revenue, what changes do I need to make to make sure it is? So that's just one thought I had.
I think of team as an investment, for sure. Like and the return isn't just more money, it's also more time and more freedom. And so looking at that, too, like one of the things that one of the things that was on my consideration list that I don't think that I was like it's kind of not relevant to this conversation, but it might be is like where am I like, when, when I was bringing on I was only going to hire one role and it was going to be Ally's role. And then I had the realization that like if something happened to me, like I needed someone also in the web designer Academy for like, continuity, like I needed another person supporting like the program. And that's why I'm like, I'm not sure how relevant it is to like this conversation necessarily, but it was like, just knowing that the WDA is like has continuity if I got sick or something like that. That's that's very valuable. To me, too. So I think it's like, I love what Lee was saying is like, it's an investment and it's an investment that I evaluate. And like,
I would also
encourage you to think okay, when I like this is what I want to hire someone to do for me. When they're doing these things, then this is what it frees me up to do. To go generate more business or whatever, whatever is going to like help you. Help your help you create that consistent revenue that you want to create. Like how do they really fit into this full picture of your future? Goals?
It's funny like evaluating I have, this is such a small thing, but like I've been in the geek pack forever. And you just like automatically every six months for new to stay in the Facebook group. And this is the first time I was like, I haven't used that because this group also has that support of like tech question. Like I mean, it's 97 bucks but I'm like, do I need to spend like so that evaluation of things that we're just like, on autopilot of like, yep, yep, yep. And so trying to be more intentional, and all of that and what the investment means versus what it gets gives back
because it all adds up. I mean, as I said,
it all adds up. And it also all could add up to like helping you create more, right?
Like where does this
fall? Yeah, evaluating it, versus just saying yes. Which is what I said on the podcast use like I heard she was like, No way and I was like, this will be a good investment. And here I am.
Yeah, hiring is it's not a big decision, necessarily. I mean, like, you're talking to VA five hours a week to, you know, help you with some administrative stuff. I think it's, it's worth exploring. The bigger conversation around
like
even just saying I have a team would feel insane to me so like insanely good. Yeah, but like that, like I'm just like, at a different level. But even if it is just like five hours a week to have someone helping me do this, like just feels like a huge like boss move and again, figuring out the right way to spend that money and find that person but like, you know, I'm kind of at that revenue point where I could probably spend a little bit for that freedom. Again, once we get through all the mind trash of the consistent income
well think about, you know, there's a person out there whose dream life is to have a handful of clients that they're working five hours a week for are doing stuff working for cool people like you who have cool businesses. And that's their dream and you get to let them support you. That's the piece that's been really that's taken me also a year to like really settle into and I'm still working on it. is letting letting them really like you saying, Hey, here's what I need. And they say I'll take care of it. And you let them you let them do what they're great at. Yeah. And you let people
you let people help you. And
it's almost almost like the shift that happens is almost like investing in like a program like this. It's just like, even if it like adding to your team, it's like
just another
transformation on the journey.
You guys are hilarious. Yeah. And it could literally be like this, like my first. My first foray foray into outsourcing was like a VA agency. And I bought a package of ours and they're they delegated it to their team to complete stuff. And that was pretty cool. I mean, I had them doing stuff I shouldn't have really been paying to do but it was or I shouldn't have been doing at that point in my business, but you learn along the way.
So I would write the job description. That's what I would invite you to do because that's kind of like whether whether you post anything now or two weeks from now or two months from now, just really like writing out that role, role description. Um, and then when I was when I did this to find the community support VA for for the five day challenge. I was just like, hey, this is a contract role that's open, here's my budget for it. And then I let people decide if they wanted to. If they wanted, if that was like in their realm of how they wanted to work.
Thank you. You're welcome.
We How have you been feeling about the responsibility of having an employee
a lot better.
I mean, I feel mentally in such a much better place like this month, like having let go of all those other stressors and like also like letting go there's, like, I've just really, I've really focused on the fact that it's like, I am a responsible person and I'm going to take risk. But it's not like the weight of the world is not on my shoulders. And I just felt that like, I'm actually having fun now with my business, because I don't have those things weighing on me. And I haven't had fun in a while.
So yeah, that's where I'm at. And I don't have
like, I like, I don't feel anxiety in my stomach anymore, which is amazing. And it's just all because I just let go in a lot of areas. Yeah.
And what do you hear your employee doing for you? She didn't mind me asking. Um,
yeah, so she's not she's not a web designer. Like she's not trained as a web designer. So but she's really good at operations. And so she has been documenting all my processes, which I've never documented. She has been improving them. She's actually like making me use like consistent contracts and, like, get clients develop project planners, you know, and it's like making my project so much more efficient. And then the next phase I actually signed her up for Geek Pac and so she's spending part of her time now so like, so I did it in phases. So like because I wanted her to have like things she can easily achieve right and not have too many expectations. Too many like fuzzy expectations, right? So at first it was just like just focusing on process improvement. And then like 50% of her time now is going to be focused on like geek pack and learning. And then once she feels comfortable, I'm going to start bringing her more into client projects and deliverables. And then the ultimate goal is she'll spend like the majority of her time on on helping with client projects, but then still maintain the processes. So that's how I've structured it for her based off of her strengths. And that was a conscious choice I made instead of going and finding someone who was like highly skilled in that area. I found someone that I trusted and that I've known and that I like trust with my life. And I know she's smart and capable and she's going to learn it. So it's you know, it's a longer it's a longer time maybe to see like potentially ROI. But I'm already starting to like see that because I'm able to get through projects quicker. And so, yeah, I mean, it's different for everyone, but that's how I've
approached it. That's awesome. Yeah.
A great employer. I don't know I've had enough of bad bosses that I just want to be a really good one.
It's really fun I think to think about like how you want to run your business, when it comes to like having team and being like, I want to do the opposite of everything that I ever hated about working for someone else like
that's just Yeah. And even even with like,
even with contractors, I just, I don't know it was just didn't want to
in the in the
business coaching programs that I'm in like to hear the way some people talk about, like, how they pay their contractors and wanting to know how many hours they're working and what are they doing with this and I don't feel like I'm getting like whatever and I'm just like, I'm talking like it's just there's I don't know, I just thought this was like there's some kind of sense of entitlement around like, oh, you work for me, like how we don't want people to treat us as web designers. That I think that we as service providers have a unique opportunity when we do build team to treat people really well in regards to like their boundaries and how they want to run their business and all that stuff. So it's it's pretty fun to
get to
kind of chain be part of that change in that way.
Yeah, I would say to that, like I'd say a lot of us are like mission driven people like we want to make a difference, right. And so bringing someone on like your job is such a huge part of your life like in your time and and being able to like give someone the opportunity to like thrive and feel empowered and be confident. It's it's like so rewarding to you know, you can build a website for someone or make enhancements to their website and that's great. Like that's gonna help their business but being able to like fully invest in someone and give them like, give them the opportunity to like grow is is not for everyone maybe but like it's very rewarding.
Is she liking the cohort stuff that geek pack is doing?
Yeah, she is. She's in the UX UI one right now.
I see that. So when I say geek pack, I actually mean WP Rockstar because I know she did. I'm in geek pack and I bought that for the year because I liked that idea that I could just pop into a course when needed, but
well I have it too. So I talked to them and he's like taking doing the cohorts but then I can jump in like udimi or Udemy. But and just like I just you know listen to courses sometimes. Just like, hear how other people are teaching it even though it's a lot of dudes on that platform.
Oh, many dudes. So
I would I would like to see a more diverse, you know, teachers on the platform but I'm sure that's not up to me. Spot fault.
No Yes. She
was on the podcast recently Julia Taylor.
She'll be at this summit as well. Yeah, yeah, she's she's. I don't know. I just love how she's what she's doing and her mission. It's pretty awesome. Is there any other we have five minutes anything? Else anyone
has to talk about
there's something on
my mind, but it might take a little bit longer.
Okay. Talking about it. So we're
so
I currently and like this whole time I'm I'm working under just a DBA so like I don't have an LLC filed or anything like that. And lately, I've been feeling the need to like, switch it over and like go ahead and do all of that. And in the United States, it's doing business as so it's like you like I am the business owner. So it's under like my social security number rather than like its own entity. And so I'm having a lot of my trash around it though, because it like I've thought a lot of the time was like okay, like I don't feel like I can do that because I don't want it to be under my name. So I was like taking my time like thinking of a name and like trying to figure out exactly what to call it and like all of the branding pieces or whatever. And recently I It came to me and I was like oh this is perfect. Like now I can move forward and I'm having a lot of mind trash around
how I don't know
like that makes it really real like that makes it really official.
And that's really scary.
What does real an official mean to
lie like I don't know exactly like it feels and I think what it is, is that it like
it feels like
I'm saying like I'm all it feels like I would be all in and right now. I think I have like one foot out the door and like I'm straddling that line. And I think that there's a part of me maybe that feels like if I do that, and then I fail it's like a bigger failure than if it's just a DBA. And it's like, Oh, it wasn't really that serious. To begin
with. I think.
So this is interesting because it's literally just the circumstance of you filing some paperwork and doing whatever you have to do in Texas. That is bringing up your real feelings
about your business. Yeah, so let's
I don't know what it looks like to do an LLC in Texas. I know in Ohio it's like a form with the Secretary of State's and like 150 bucks.
Yeah, super simple.
And, like the name is literally just like the name on all of like government documents and stuff. minus Wp BFF WordPress BFF like way back in the day. So if that stuff was just paperwork and a and legal protections, you know that that basically is like okay, this is just paperwork, and this is separating my business money from my personal money and putting like, you know, making it so that if somebody sued my business, they'd only get business assets and not personal if that was all that meant.
How would you feel about it?
Probably relieved I mean, I I know that that's the smart choice to make like because it's like you said protection. So yeah, if that was all that man it would be like well done. Why am I not doing that? Why? Did I not do that a year ago.
The extra meaning that you are applying to it is why?
I know it's so it feels so silly. But like it's
I know I am curious, though about like why is it a problem that year you have one foot in and one foot out?
Because then I'm not like I'm not marketing like
I should I'm not or in like I can't, not necessarily like I should but that I know that I can in order to like I'm I know that this can be
really successful. Yeah, I don't know. It just scares me. So
if you had to fit in, you would be marketing
differently than you are.
Yeah, I think it would just be like, more. It's not necessarily just the marketing piece. I think it's more of like, like fully believing in myself and fully trusting that like, I made the right decision and like this is like this is going to work and like I'm fully and it's not that I'm not fully committed to it. Maybe I'm not I don't know.
But, but just the idea of like and I think we talked about this before
was it you and I maybe it wasn't even I I thought I was talking to somebody about this recently, but like I I feel the need to be good at everything I do right at the beginning. And so I it's feels like if I file for an LLC, and like, it's like okay, like, I'm doing this thing and then I have to be successful immediately.
What is successful immediately look like
I would love to believe that successful looks like happy and that I have freedom and all of that but I'm afraid that underneath there's a lot of money stuff
so if
happy and freedom is just like a given it's a choice like I know it's not always that easy but like it is that happy and freedoms fully within your control. Money is not always what does success in terms of money. look like to you immediate success in terms of money look like to
think that I mean if we're if we're, if I'm completely
honest, it's probably not the actual like dollar amount is probably more about trusting that I can create consistent clients and like a pipeline. Because I don't feel like that right now. And I feel like it's partly because I've gone back and forth quite a bit on like what exactly I'm offering and because my offer for the past year has been so so very specific, and like really, really niche. And so I go back and forth with like, should I expand that because if I don't expand like I'm excluding a lot of people and not necessarily even expanding to like include.
I don't know people
that are like way further away in terms of
how I would go
about the project or like my process or whatever. But
anyway, I don't know
there was a lot of that. I don't even know if that made any sense at all.
It does. What it sounds like to me is that
it feels like if
I go forward with the LLC, then I have to have all of these decisions made ahead of time, knowing that I'm making the right decision ahead of time before I have any data or evidence to support those decisions.
Yeah. And so what if
you could decide that you are just willing to try a lot of different things to find out what works and what doesn't work and read the end like you said something like it's not the dollar amount. It's trusting that I can create consistent clients and I think that the lack of trust comes from your thoughts about like, not knowing right now exactly how that's going to happen step by step.
Like you need
to like mentally have a guarantee that like what I'm going to do is going to create clients and I need to decide what to do and is a or is it B and like you're kind of stuck in that place. Like whether you do an LLC or not is kind of like neither here nor there. I think it's just really like
brought this up. I would
like do you think you can trust yourself? To
let yourself experiment and gather data? That's so funny that
I'm always talking about experimenting and gathering data and teach
what I need to learn to Erica.
And that feels so scary.
But yes,
what if you redefined what good at or immediate success look like?
I mean, we are
already doing all the things you're just not making offers. I feel
like no, it's that's exactly I'm not making that your marketing.
You're building relationships. You're doing all of that part.
Yeah. I decided in like we talked about this back in January like I needed some some space and I made the decision to not really market actively and may not necessarily market but make offers until at least May. And people I'm currently booked out until June, like people have kind of been coming to me. And so
this is fascinating that you're already successful, and you don't think you are
and I think it's because projects don't look like what I thought they would look like.
Yeah. So do you like what they look like? Yeah, I do.
I do. They don't all necessarily have to do with course creation. Some of them feel kind of piecemeal. And so I think there's something there too, like, if it's not like, I don't know, it's this kind of all or nothing. If it's not all if it's not course creation and it's not really relevant like that's not really what I
don't know.
Relevant. I was going to actually share that. I'm kind of going through the same thing a little bit. Because my web web design I don't really want to do web design anymore. I I like the technical SEO part. I like the accessibility part.
And maybe that's
I don't know if it I need to go through the mindset to see if it's trash or my crash, but it I don't know it's just gonna evolve. Whatever you offer is evolving. If it's consulting. It may not look like exactly what you started. To, but you're giving a valuable service to Him that that is what you're on for her. That's what your businesses Thank you.
Do you have a frame we teach a framework through which literally any business could be fit into, you know, like, boundaries, packages, pricing, all of that philosophy. It doesn't matter if you're running a web design business, a consulting firm and accounting like it literally it does not matter. I just happen to you know, focus on web designers, but
I just want to want to
invite you to explore this like thought error that you have that you're not all in and that you're not
successful
and if you were
if someone in the WGA came to you and said that to you.
What how would you like how
would you guide them
through how they think about themselves? And what success looks like
yeah, I have to work through some of that.
Like I don't trust myself to create consistent clients, but I'm booked out till June and I understand it's like in this specific niche that I ultimately want to serve.
But like
are you willing to work your way there? You know,
and
you said something to that was like, Oh, I've changed a lot about like what my offer is? You know, I think he said something like I don't know if you have some like pivot shame going on. Or something.
No. So but I Okay. Like what you said about me feeling like I need to have all the decisions made and I can know all of this like I do. I do feel like I need to know I like I typically don't make decisions, which is why I collect a lot of data like I typically don't make decisions before I know exactly what is going to happen next. And so I feel like I'm in this space where I'm like, Okay, I have this one very niche, very premium offer.
And it is
like I know that there are people out there that need it but it really is like the person on the other side really does have to be in a very specific frame of mind in order to accept that offer and like feel like they need that offer. And so I do I have been feeling a lot like okay, well maybe I need to like have another set of offers. That's for somebody that's not quite in that same position. And so there's a lot of like I think there's a lot of fear around that because I'm like, Okay, well I don't know exactly what that looks like yet. And so I feel like I can't move forward until I do and then I don't have clients in that like mid space. So it's like I don't even know if
that's I don't even know if it'll be
successful.
I was literally just gonna say that Trish Trish beat me to it, let the problem come to you. Wait for them to ask like are you willing to go force with this offer that you already have? Knowing that it's not right for everyone, but that it's right for the right people? And through the through the exploration of that the other offers that are like potential good fits for other people that you may meet will rise to the surface. You know, you'll have ideas come up in the pursuit of the people for the pursuit of the
best clients for this offer. You You're you will
those things will come to fruition you don't already have to know ahead of time. I think there's something like there may be an underlying thought that like there's just not enough people out there for the super premium offer they have to be in this like really specific place in their business and like really ready for this.
And that's
that's true that there that there is like the right client out there for it but like you can go talk to 100 people to find the 10 and then you'll have data on the other 90
on what else you could offer. And just kind of
like what we were talking about yesterday like you are in full autonomy of your business and what you offer and how much you charge for it.
Yeah, cuz there definitely is a an underlying thought of like there's not enough there's not enough people for this, and certainly not enough people within my realm of like existing currently.
So we're always meeting new people.
I am I Yeah.
So yeah,
I know we're waiting. Oh,
no, you're good. I saw your on your face that you were like, do I want to even talk about this? Like, unmute? No, I'm not gonna unmute. Like I can see
it. It's gonna take a little bit longer. Like we literally
had five minutes. I'm glad that you asked. And I think the LLC is literally like an administrative task. If you want to do it, do it like I think it's I really do think it's, if you're if you're going to continue to be a freelancer who is working with clients in some capacity, it feels like you have been up until now. It feels like that is a good business move. That has literally nothing to do with success
or failure
I'm gonna put that in my brain.
It doesn't make you official, it doesn't make you legit. It is literally like, is this entity the one receiving the money? Or is this entity the one receiving the money? Like neutralize that but then the real work is
this Yeah,
I'll in have to know ahead of time. Yeah, I mean, all of this other stuff that's successful and consistent doesn't count. Yeah, you have evidence that you can create clients and revenue even for the offer that you want to sell?
Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you. Your question. It's a gift
to catch up on the chat later.
Yes. Yeah, thanks for hanging out extra. I mean, I'm always down if I have time to do some extra coaching. So um, yeah, I'll see you all next week. I think we have a topic. Let me open up my calendar to see what the schedule is for next week. It is oh, we don't have a call next week. Because the summit. So you all are welcome to mastermind together on Zoom. I think actually, we should just cancel it because I don't know if I don't know if you'll be Yeah. We'll just cancel it because I feel like
like, I'll be on
we're gonna be doing Oh, yeah, we can't like Erica can't start this. She's going to be doing the accessibility panel. So we're canceling it. And then I'll see you guys in two weeks.