episode 0078- the time trap that's keeping small businesses small with six figure business coach kirsten graham

In this episode, we sit down with Kirsten Graham, founder of Six Figure Business Coaching, and we discuss why small business owners stay stuck doing everything themselves. She walks us through how outsourcing, hiring virtual assistants, and dropping the $10 tasks can unlock real growth. Especially for the solopreneurs who never feel like they have enough time to grow the business. If you've been the bottleneck in your own business, this is your permission to stop doing it all alone.

Get your first Every Plate meal box free here!

Show Highlights:
1- How did you start “being your own boss” in the early days? (5:35)
2- How did you know how to mentor people as a business, like pricing, frequency of meetings, etc.? (11:20)
3- Why / when should someone outsource some of their business tasks? (18:35)
4- We discuss setting up affiliates. (24:25)
5- We discuss the value of virtual assistants. (26:50)
6- We discuss the business of podcasting. (32:20)
7- Where can we learn more from Kirsten? (42:30)
8- Listener question: Should I start a YouTube channel? (43:00)

Follow us on Instagram: @witnessbusiness
Follow Kirsten on Instagram: @sfbizcoaching

Note: Some of the links above may be affiliate links, meaning we may earn a small commission if you click the link and make a purchase. This is no additional cost to you; it just helps us be able to run the best show possible. Thank you for your support!

Transcript:

 Welcome to the Witness Business podcast. We've got on the show with us today, Kirsten Graham of six Figure Business Coaching. Kirsten, thanks for hopping on with us today.

Thank you so much for having me, Steven. I'm excited to hang out with you and Kyle.

Yeah, us as well. Uh, how we typically kick off our conversation is with this question, what would you say is the worst job you've ever had?

I've been self-employed most of my entire life. I wouldn't say it was the worst job, but I would say waitressing was a long a learning lesson for me, I guess. So I waited tables, high school, early college, and one of the things I learned quickly is that a lot of people, if it's slow, they'd rather go home.

And we were always slow on Tuesdays, and I eventually convinced the manager to cut everyone on Tuesdays but me. And so he would run food for me and help bus tables and I'd walk outta there with like 300 bucks. So he didn't wanna listen to all the other servers, complain about how slow it was. And you know, everybody only gets one table a night.

And so that took a little while to work on, but I kind of convinced him and so he started staffing less people on Tuesday, and then if they were complaining he'd send them home. So it really taught me that, you know. You have to hustle and you have to think about, you know, I was there waiting tables to make money.

I wasn't there to like complain about work or talk about school or whatever that was. So I think that taught me some valuable lessons and you know, keep your eye on the ball. I came here to make money, how am I gonna do that? And so I think that's important for business owners and I think that was a good lesson to learn.

It sounds like you also had your, uh, early origins for coaching too, right? From the jump, you were already coaching people up. Hey, do this, do that, do it better.

Coaching your own boss, like this is what you wanna do. You wanna keep me 'cause I'm the best, obviously.

Well, he, he would just get tired of everyone complained, right? So that's the way it is at a restaurant, you either they're slammed and they're complaining 'cause they're slammed or they're not busy enough, so they're not making any money. So I would just start early on, oh, do you have an exam coming up? Oh, it sucks to be here when you need to be studied.

So, yeah.

Working, working.

Yes. So it worked out well. And I think he, he, it was better, you know, it really worked out for him as well, because he didn't have to listen to everyone moan and complain, and they got to go do other things.

Well, I, you've answered the question before. We could even ask the follow up of like, what did you get out of it? And it sounds like you, you were kind of getting your uh, getting your feet wet for what you would end up doing in the future, more or

Yeah, we, we do that with our kids. Uh, like anytime we have like steak or something, they're like, what are you eating? Oh, uh, you don't want any, this is not very good. You don't want any of that. You gotta really like talk it down so that you get all the good stuff. That's kind of what you did at the restaurant.

Like, you guys don't wanna work today. Just stay home. You're, you gotta study, you gotta do all this stuff.

And while telling the manager they're just gonna whine and moan all night, nobody's gonna walk outta here making any money. Everyone's gonna be mad. You have higher turnover when people aren't making money. So yeah, I really kind of came at it at both angles, but yeah.

Love that. Go ahead

yeah. I was just gonna ask, I guess the, the logical transition question. You know, we can, we can see pretty clearly just from your first answer, kind of the, um, the roots of, of, you know, what you ended up doing today, but you said that you've largely been your own boss most of your career. So how did you, kind of, your early professional career, you know, how did that.

Play out to where you ended up in the position that you are now, because, you know, if you've got somebody that's wanting to run a six figure plus business, you don't just turn that over to somebody with, with no acumen or no proven track record. So we'd love to hear more about that.

Sure,  so in the late eighties, I'll age myself a little bit here. In the late eighties, I started selling real estate and I was really young going into the business, but I loved it. I eventually ended up on the mortgage side and that was where my real passion was, and I stayed on that side for many years.

I went on to own a mortgage company and a title company, and so I really loved everything about real estate and I did. I was very involved. You know, BNI and all the networking and all of those things. And I did a lot of loans for self-employed people because, you know, when you're out networking, you're, you're networking with other business owners.

And so I would do their mortgages for them and inevitably you would see, you know, their full personal tax returns and their business tax returns. And so I really knew, you know. Everything about them and their business in that regard. And so they would often take me to lunch to pick my brain. And I really mentored for about a decade before I started charging for coaching and, uh, 2008 hit.

So in a mortgage company, company and title company, that was a lot of fun. But we stayed in business and it really, um. That's really when I started picking up pay clients because it just made sense. And in 2013, my mom was terminally ill and so I went on vacation in September and came back and told my entire staff I was gonna close the businesses that I was just done.

At that point, you couldn't sell a mortgage company, you. In 2013 and yeah, they were all, they were all happy because they all wanted to go do other things. So it really worked out. So we wrapped up all the business and closed that business, those two businesses at the end of 2013. And then I just continued to pick up coaching clients.

And so it really was just a natural progression. It, it wasn't anything I planned, you know, again, I mentored for years, I still mentor, but then bringing on clients was, you know,  the next way to build a business for me.

Now, one thing that I, I find myself, I, I like to ask a lot of our guests is kind of that, that light bulb moment where it's like, oh, like I could do this full-time professionally. Uh, you know, because it's, it's one thing to. To do it for fun and to feel a sense of fulfillment for people that, you know, professionally, professional acquaintances and things like that.

It's another thing to stake your income on it. So was there kind of a, a moment where it was like, oh, this is, this is something that I'm gonna do as a career as, you know, you, I feel like you could probably see the writing on the wall based on the way you've described it. So was it like a, a transition, a a clear transition plan?

Or was it a like a Oh, this is as serendipitous as it gets.

Serendipitous it really took off. So, you know, again, I wasn't planning on pursuing full-time coaching.  I just kept getting clients. I've got clients I've had now for over a decade. So, um, yeah, it just really happened on its own. But then there were the progressions to where I am now as far as, um. You know, businesses change, you know how we communicate changes, AI's changing everything.

So we really had an evolution with what people needed, support and what they needed coaching in. And that's, that did take a big turn for us. 

One thing I thought was interesting about what you said was the fact, and this is kind of part of why we have this show, is that you told your employees that we're wrapping, we're closing up shop, and they were all relieved and wanted to go do other things. And I wonder how many people out there even listening to this show or like. Like, it, it, it almost would take some people to like getting fired to really like, get kicked in the  butt to get off  the couch and do what they want to do. And, you know, sometimes we look at getting fired as a. Uh, as a bad, you know, woe is me. This, this kind, this sucks. But I always tell people like, man, if I got fired from my job, I'd be rich  because it would like  give me, like, you have to make it.

Okay, now nobody's employing me. Now I have to figure it out and make it. So I was, uh, you know, not that you should want to get fired or like, you know, not try at your job, but like, there's so many miserable people. I don't know how your, I'm not saying your employees were miserable, but there's so many miserable, miserable people at their job.

And I'm like, man, just like, start now. Start, 

Yeah. 

taking 5, 10, 15 minutes a day and, and start pursuing what you love and see what happens. 

Yeah, I think that's so important. Like I think people think I either have to have a job or a business, and we have a lot of clients who come on with full-time jobs and we, you know, get them up and running and then sometimes they'll go part-time with their full-time job and then eventually phase it out.

It doesn't have to be one or the other. And I think that's so important for people to understand and if you are unhappy, whether it's in your job or even in your business, because sometimes, you know, at that point I was, I was finished right? In 2000 14, 15, 16, those were all great years to be in the mortgage business.

Right. You know, so there was money, you know, that was there to be made. So, but sometimes when you're done, you're done. And if, if you get to that point with something you're doing, whether it's a business or a job, yeah. Start making a plan. And like I said, it was an evolution. I start taking on clients part-time and then it really took off into full-time.

So, but if I hadn't taken those part-time clients, if I hadn't said, okay, well I'll, I'll start taking on some side money, then, you know, I wouldn't have gotten to that place where it replaced my income.

 Did you have a, a kind of a, a mentor showing you the ropes on how to do this? Coaching because I'm just kind of imagining if you're doing something else, you know you're in the mortgage industry and you start taking on this mentorship, it's like you're giving these people your time. You'd like to be compensated for your time.

How much do I charge? How long is the coaching session? How often should we meet? What are the core principles I'm trying to give to them?  Like all these  different things that I feel like. You know, you can kind of assemble and put together o over time, but it's one thing to have the big idea and it's another thing to execute it in its fullness.

So I, I'd love, I'd love to hear more about that. 

Yeah, and I don't think execute in its fullness is always what we start off with, right. We just start off with, let's see how this goes. So, you know, and it is funny because. You know, and I say I have clients for over a decade. You know, there's a lot of people that sell, you know, 90 day coaching programs.

They work with you for 90 days and they're, they're done because they're helping you accomplish, you know, one piece of business. And that's great. And so if there's so many different tile styles of coaching, for me, I like understanding how. Every aspect of a person's business works. But understand also, I like to understand how every aspect of that person works because I, this is gonna sound terrible.

If you think about training a dog, we really don't train the dog. We train the owner, if you think about that, right? And so it's the same a lot of times with business. It's getting to know a person and having enough trust and an an intimate enough relationship where you can say. Pretty much whatever you wanna say to them, obviously in a kind way, because most of the time when people aren't successful, it's because they're self-sabotaging or they're just, they're just not making good decisions.

And so with the clients that I've had for years, you know, I've got people that were startup to several million dollars. You know, I've clients that have come on, you know, in that larger several million dollar range. So it really just depends. But having them trust you enough to have an intimate relationship where you can really.

Make suggestions, you know, call out some things that maybe they're doing or that they might may wanna look at, look in the mirror and say, am I doing this? You know, how can I change this? You know, what am I doing that's stopping me from going where I wanna go? So, yeah, I, I do monthly coaching, so it's once a month, it's 90 minutes.

And I do a couple clients that would rather have 2 45 minute sessions that we do that, but I'm not. I'm not helping them with just one area of their business. We're usually talking about all areas, and we may spend, you know, six months on one certain area, um, that is important and then move on to something else.

So, yeah, I, I, it just kind of all kind of clicked and part of it is like, how do I wanna show up and what do I want to do as far as working with clients? And again, for me it's having that deeper, more intimate relationship with them where. I can really help them get to the core of what's going on. I'm not a mindset coach.

I'm definitely more of a business coach, and my contract does say this is not therapy,  but sometimes it feels more like therapy. But um, yeah.

You've brought up a couple great, great things there. First thing before it gets away from me is a quick aside. I love whenever somebody says, I shouldn't say this, but then they say it because, 'cause usually it needs to be said. Um. But you know, just kind of the idea of,  playing therapist, you know, do you kind of find yourself encountering the same issues with people in the position that when they reach out to you, like is it a common problem or is it more one of those things where you encounter a bunch of symptoms and then they boil down eventually to the same problem?

Are you, and then you're kind of by proxy still playing therapist? Right.

Well, really, it really depends on the person and where they are within their business. So, for example, I'm coaching a gentleman who, you know, I think he came in with me, his, his business is around three, three and a half million. So he's doing really well and he's had his business for a long time. And you know, he also has a huge real estate portfolio.

And, and so it's interesting because. One of the things that I think entrepreneurs are famous for is we, we love, we have so many ideas, like you guys are talking about big ideas and how do you, how do you bring it to market? Sometimes the problem is we have so many big ideas and you know, with this particular client, luckily he's been reading some really good books and we were having the conversation around, before you start something new, why don't you maximize profit in these areas of your business?

So having these conversations. You know, because again, it's exciting to create or build something new. It's not always fun or exciting to figure out how you can maximize profit in your current business. So it really, again, it's, it's lots of different topics that we talk about and. And I, it's easy for me 'cause I struggle with the same thing.

Like I could roll out a new program, like my business partner and I could roll out a new coaching program like every 30 days if you'd let us. 'cause we love teaching so much. But is that in our best interest or are we better off to, you know, to maximize the offers that we have. But each person is a, a little bit different.

I have a couple husbands and wives that own businesses together and that's a whole different dynamic. So, or business partners, you know, figuring out who's gonna. Take on what roles and who's gonna, and how do we stay in our own lanes to get support and, and compliment each other as business partners. So it really just depends.

So give us, if you don't mind, um, kind of like. A little sampling, a little taste of maybe somebody is, um, thinking about hiring a business coach. You know, we have a lot of new and aspiring entrepreneurs that listen to our show. You know, what is, um, give us kind of a, I know it's kind of hard when you don't know details, when you're not talking to a specific person, but like, what's something.

Or maybe give us an example of something that you've coached, somebody that you've coached recently. Uh, a piece of advice you gave them that helped elevate their business to the next level. Because I think a lot of people kind of think like, okay, I'm making some money now. I got some traction, but I don't want to.

Pay for somebody, you know, that, that I, I, I don't like, I don't know the next steps, but I also don't want to like eat away at my profit for the, you know, for the risk of that just being taught, thrown away kind of thing. I think a lot of people think like that. I've thought like that. I,

Well, it Well, I was gonna say, just to add to your point, like I think everybody's worst nightmare is kind of what's happened recently with Cracker Barrel, where it's like you have a good thing open going and you're looking to innovate in a new way. And really what you just created is a bigger problem for yourself.

So that's, that's all the commentary I was gonna add.

Yeah. Well, I'm gonna kind of finish a little bit of an evolution because that might help with this. Um, so one of  my clients actually is now my business partner. And she, I helped her build a digital agency and I helped her start outsourcing that about 17 years ago. So that really happened and, and she was taking care of people's fan pages for Facebook and setting up LinkedIn profiles and helping small businesses learn how to use email marketing.

So a lot of things have changed with marketing over the years, and one of the things that. You know, she and I started having conversations around a few years ago is people need to show up in their content. And so that led she and I to start working together and we actually have a few programs that actually help clients outsource.

So rather than taking on the subject of coaching, I will circle back to that, but I wanna start off with outsourcing. We talk about as a business owner. We always talk about how all the hats we wear, and unfortunately when you start a business, you have no idea what hats you're gonna wear. You don't even know what all the hats are.

There are hats coming at you from every direction, and you don't even know. So you have technology, you have marketing, you know you have bookkeeping, you have product development. You have figured out your pricing structure. You have your client acquisition, understanding your customer's journey. You know, all of these things are hats you have to wear.

And so early on, I like to ask clients, you know, what hats should you not be wearing? So we really help our clients outsource in three different areas. And so with coaching, sometimes if I have a conversation with someone, it may not be that they're ready for a one-on-one coach. It may be they may be better off getting support in their business of someone doing things, because again, coaching is helping people understand what to do and overcome the hurdles, whether it's information or battling within themselves.

But a lot of times it's people just don't have enough hours in the day. They do not have enough time. To learn everything they need to learn and then implement it. So for example, bookkeeping, that was the first thing my business partner outsourced years ago was her bookkeeping. And so we help clients outsource their bookkeeping very affordably.

And this allows them to learn how to read their profit and loss statement and understand their balance sheet without doing all of the bookkeeping itself. And so for a lot of people getting tasks off of their plate. They don't enjoy doing, they're not good at doing, or it's gonna have a huge learning curve is sometimes more important than coaching or buying a program.

Is that helpful? 

Yeah, I get, I mean, so many of the entrepreneurs we've talked to is. The idea of you have to do it or no one else is going to do it. Like, and it's it you do it yourself or it doesn't, it doesn't get done. And so the idea that you could come in and speak to them in that maybe next stage of their growth where it's like, Hey, you've been doing it all by yourself and you no longer have to those things that you hate, those things that you're bad at you, you can find somebody who does those full-time to free you up to focus on the things that are important to you.

I can, I can see there being a lot of value in that for sure. 

People buy programs or like they, they're getting coaching. But again, if they don't have enough bandwidth to process what they're learning and they don't have the skills to implement what they need to know, then they're just spending money really for nothing in a lot of ways. I hate to say it that way, but you know, if you can't implement what you're learning, you're not gonna go anywhere and.

I don't, I still to this day do not understand why business owners think they have to do it all themselves when you could outsource things for three to six bucks an hour. Why would you ever do those things? And I think women are worse than men. I think you guys are much better at outsourcing and delegating the women as a whole.

But again, let's say a client, they can, QuickBooks is like 40 bucks. Zoho books is 20 bucks. Most of our clients, their bookkeeping's four or five hours a month. So you're looking at $30. So with software and your bookkeeper. You're under 80 bucks a month to have all of your bookkeeping done. And to be able to have a meeting with a bookkeeper who can really coach you on understanding your, you know, your profit loss statement, you know, questioned, you know, these are all the subscriptions you have, are you still using all of these, you know, or, or bringing up a point like, Hey, your marketing expenses doubled this month.

I just wanna make sure, you know, we can go through what the expenses were to make sure they're accurate and categorized correctly. So. We don't have to do it all. And that's one of the things I'm hoping that business owners will understand is you can start a business and right off the bat outsource.

Another thing we help our clients with is software. So I, I'm not tech savvy. My business partner is, are both of you tech savvy or are both of you great with tech? 

Uh, dangerous enough to myself and others. 

Okay. 

I'm our pod. I was, I was, I was thinking about how I'm gonna pitch Kyle on hiring an editor after this conversation. 'cause I'm our, I'm our resident podcast editor, which is not my favorite job,

Well,  okay, we'll talk about that too then. Yeah. So Jeanie's very tech savvy, which is awesome. Because of her abilities, we're able to hire really awesome software, virtual assistants. So, you know, when you start a business in this day and age, it's really not like you have an online business or an offline businesses business.

Most businesses are both, you know, you, you need a web. Website. You need social media presence, but you also need things like landing pages and lead magnets, and you definitely need a CRM. If you're not managing the contacts that you're making and nurturing those to become clients, then you know you're really missing out.

So we help our clients with those things as well, helping them understand how to use a system with software. Where you can have a virtual assistant, whether you need them four hours a month this month and no hours, the next three months that you can have someone who's trained and capable of doing these things so you don't have to learn it.

Um, and some people wanna learn a software. They want to learn how to create their own lead magnets or build their own landing pages or set up their own automation. I have zero interest in that, and I don't feel like you need to know how to do something to delegate it. If, if that makes sense. I know what a

landing page is. I know what an automation is. I know what I want it to look like and I know what I want it to say. So I don't need someone to tell me that. I just need someone who can do the tech side for me. 

One thing I find interesting though is that you continue to talk about the idea of outsourcing, but not just outsourcing. You are also directly connecting people with said sources  for outsourcing.  So do you have any kind of affiliate set up, or is it just kind of as time has gone on, you've gotten connected with people that you know and trust and you make the reference? 

It's, it's all affiliate stuff, so we are, we're not a ma we always say we're not a marketing agency, we're not an outsourcing agency. So for example, we have a bookkeeping program. So when our client buys into that program, we talk to them about. You know how to run a business, like the coaching part of, you know, running a business, how to work with a bookkeeper, you know, deciding on the best software.

And then we actually pair them with a, a bookkeeping VA that we vetted. So we pair them with someone to work with directly with our software. The software virtual assistants. We actually, are you familiar with high level? Go, high level the software. 

I don't, I don't think. I'm familiar with that one. 

It is inevitably the best marketing software on the planet right now.

I'll just say that. But we actually white labeled, uh, that software about four years ago, we call it from leads to sales. And we white labeled it because we were able to build out incredible funnels, but we couldn't just give those to our clients. So when we white labeled the software, it gave us the ability to drop all of our funnels and all of our workflows into our client's accounts, which help them get up and running even faster.

And then when we realized if people sign up for a software. It's a learning curve just to get set up. So we actually have a, a, a staff of software, virtual assistants. So when someone signs up for the software, we pair them with one of those VAs who completely sets up their account for them and spends time answering questions and showing them how to use that and then moving forward.

Whenever they want support in that software, whether it's questions, they can come to one of our live weekly calls or they can buy a block of time to hire a software virtual assistant to do things for them. So for us, it's really, we're very targeted as to what we do. And it, it's really because over the years of coaching, I find that bookkeeping, technology and marketing are the three biggest challenges for most people.

 And so those are the areas we support them in. So. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

been kind of in the, in the entrepre entrepreneurship world for the last like 10 years.

I've got a friend that's been an entrepreneur and we kind of started businesses around the same time. And, um. And he talked about using VAs and the value of it, but it sounds like, it almost sounds like you're talking about a different VA for different tasks.

Absolutely. That is.

can you, can you just kind of like dive into this world of VAs and help us understand like, how do you know you need a va?

Like how do you know what type of VA you need and et cetera.

Sure.

'cause there's somebody that had just dawned on them that they could hire one. So.

So, yeah, so I, I have to make sure I don't preach, so if I get preachy, just say hold off. Um, so first of all, that's  the biggest mistake people make and we made it, you know, in the beginning as well, is trying to hire a magic unicorn. You don't wanna hire a person who can do everything for you because.

It's very unlikely that they're gonna be great at everything. So we are very specific about hiring virtual assistants for very specific tasks. So our original program, which is called the Marketing VA Advantage, is where we help our clients who wanna start a YouTube channel or a podcast. We help them understand, you know, their strategy and, and that part of it.

But then we pair them with a virtual assistant who takes care of their video editing, audio editing, graphic design, social media, marketing of the podcast. So. That's very specific. That person goes to a paid internship with us to make sure that they have all those skills. You don't wanna hire your bookkeeper to do your podcast editing, right?

It doesn't make sense. And so that's the biggest challenge people make is one, trying to hire a magic unicorn. The second thing I think is a huge mistake is they aren't clear around what they want to hire for. We always say. SOPs aren't sexy, but they are the backbone of outsourcing. They're the backbone of building a team.

And so when you think about hiring someone, sit down and write, what do you want this person to do? Create a job description and then ask yourself, what are the hard skills and the soft skills this person needs to have to do this job? And again, you know, when it comes to video editing, audio editing, graphic design, social media, that's all in a creative space.

Software, virtual assistants, they can build great landing pages or websites as far as the tech part, but you know, they may not be fabulous on the design side. So really figuring out what you want a person to do once you have the job description and the job post of what you want them to do for you.

That's, that's the first step. But before you can hire them, before you post that job post, you wanna make sure you have systems and processes in place and a way to onboard them when they come on with you and you hear it all the time. Well, I, I hired someone and it was, you know, it was more work than it was worth.

If I have to spend this much time training them, why would I ever do that? And that's a very shortsighted view, but it's also because most business owners are not great at creating standard operating procedures. We're not good at documenting what we do and then teaching others how to do it. We also a, again, I think a lot of times people expect their VA to be able to read their mind rather than to learn how to communicate with cultural differences so that it's a great working relationship with someone halfway around the world.

So there's a lot more that goes into it that I think a lot of people realize, but it is absolutely life changing. And I'll stop there and pause for a second and take a breath and let you guys jump in. And then, then I'll add some  more.

No, that's really good. I, uh, you know, I'm just kind of thinking about the idea of, you know, you've said getting someone to understand who's halfway around the world, but I also was thinking, you know, how is it that you, maybe, I'm trying to think of a better word, but. Co. How is it that you coerce somebody into hiring this person?

If you're dealing with somebody where they, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs, they do it because they feel like they do it best or that they understand the vision. So how is it that you kind of talk them through relinquishing that kind of control? Because I can imagine, I'm just imagining somebody listening right now where it's like, I've done everything.

This is my baby. I'm scared to death to turn it over to somebody else, especially somebody else halfway across the world who may not understand my vision. You know? How is it that you talk to them about that and coach them up on that? 

So I would say, do you wanna keep your baby a baby forever? Or do you want that baby to graduate and go off to college? Do you want, are you happy with the income your baby's making for you right now? Or do you see it being able to produce bigger results? Because generally, you know, there, there are, there are people out there who I think can build huge businesses just by themselves, but I think, again, they're not the norm.

So are you trying to build a business or did you, did you start the business to create a job for yourself? And there's nothing wrong with it if you're like, I created this, I wanna do it all. I'm happy. I think the average business in the US makes around 50 grand a year. I'm happy with that. Or did you start a business thinking, I wanna work in my unique ability.

I wanna do the parts of my business that I love, that have the biggest impact on my client and I'm okay delegating those other things, knowing that I can get the person that's on my team to do a great job and, and to create the level of accuracy that I want them to create.  And in a lot of cases, even better.

 Yeah, that's, uh, that's all good stuff. I, uh, I'm,

I am, I'm absorbing it

yeah, I'm, yeah, seriously, we're, we're all, we're like, you know, building this podcast too, so I'm like trying to think of questions, but also trying to like, think of how this applies to what we're doing and building ourselves. So it's

Well, let me, let me give you a, lemme give you a stat. So you look at all the podcasts out there and you're thinking, should I start a podcast? There's so much competition. Wow. Should I do that? Less? Around seven point a half percent of podcasters are podcasting after 24 months. Seven and a half percent.

almost

So, yeah, when  you look at your, when you, when you think about it and why, it's because there's a lot more that goes into creating a podcast than people realize when they first get started.

And even though you might enjoy the editing in the beginning, 'cause you're learning something new and it's fun, after a while you're like, oh God, I've gotta edit that podcast episode.  You know,  it's not your passion, it's not what you're great at. It's not what you love doing. But then you force yourself to do it to the point where you get to the.

But you don't even enjoy the podcast anymore. Um, you know, we have two podcasts. Our, our guests are, it's a, it's a very automated system. When we book guests, you know, Jeanie and I joke that we show up for the interview. We know who they are, we know all about them. We interview them. She uploads that video when we're done until it, it's produced and everything's done for it.

So, thinking about, you know, I always. I was born a queen bee. I didn't know, I didn't start off as a princess. So learning how to be the the CEO in your business, learning how to be the CFO in your business, and understanding that there are amazing, hardworking people out there, you know, who get to do things.

Like I said, let's talk about editing a video or editing a podcast. There are people out there who love doing that. Like that's their unique ability, that's their passion. You know, create an amazing social media posts, that's what they love doing. So by taking something off of my plate that I could or could do possibly but not enjoy doing, it would take me twice as long.

I can hand it off to someone who, that's their unique ability. That's something they love doing. And I feel like that's a huge win-win. And that's about that collaboration and that's about building something bigger than ourselves.  

I feel like that's the dream for us. For me, I don't know about Kyle. We need to have a sit down  and maybe rehash  everything. But, uh, the idea of, I think of like, you know, like your big podcasters, Seth Ro, or not Seth Rogan. Uh,  Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan,  and, um, the o Vaughn and like some of these big comedians, they show up, they have a really nice production studio.

They have a fun conversation with a guest. They go home. Then they get millions of views, like, uh, aside from the millions of views, like that's, I mean, I aspire for that, but, uh, like the idea of, of offloading, like all the, all the stuff, I think the, the, the hard thing is like for podcasting. Is, um, if it's, if it's like, for us, it's a podcast on its own.

It's like a standalone podcast. There's not necessarily a business tied to it yet. We have, we have, we're in discussion about like different ideas, but, uh, when you're not making money, it's hard to justify. Like, let's hire, let's spend, you know, how we spent, you know, X amount of dollars for startup costs just to do this podcast.

What if we spent x amount of dollars a month? Doing this, you know, over and over and, and you know, until you get revenue, it's hard to like mentally justify that. I mean, the idea is that you do ultimately grow big enough to be able to get sponsorships and things like that,

We're  not getting a free session here, Steve.

Well,  I, I, well, I got you saying, can I put my coaching hat on?

yeah,  no, I'm just, I, and it's not just for us. I think there's people out there that have thought, like podcasting is kind of all the rage right now. Everybody's starting a podcast and people are like, should I start a podcast? I don't know. Maybe it's a legitimate question we could talk about here. 

Sure. So first of all, for $250 a month, you could have four episodes. An episode every week produced all the social media. You could have that done 250 bucks a month, you're talking 81 bucks dollars a week. So it's very affordable to have that done. But the other thing is, even though you haven't started a business yet, there are ways to go ahead, monetize your channel so you could become an affiliate if there's things that you use and that you love.

Be an affiliate for that. It's a way to promote something you already use and you're happy with, and then you're, you have that ability to share that with your clients. You know? Um, sponsorships can be a little bit harder. Affiliate marketing is a little bit easier to get started with, I think. Um, but yeah, I, I, I, I think starting thinking about how to monetize now is always important because the podcast in and of itself should be able to produce income for you, um, early on,  outside of you having something to sell.

 So we interviewed a lady on our podcast and one of the offers that she promoted on her YouTube channel in one year yielded her $150,000. So it's definitely a conversation you want to have. I'm very strongly opinionated on the fact that, you know, you don't wanna promote anything you don't believe in.

You know, you don't have trust and faith in that business, so make sure you're ethical and honest about it. But think about it. You know, when's the last time you went to a restaurant and you're like, oh my gosh, that's so good, and you're telling everyone about it. You know, naturally we promote things that we believe and that we love, and that we believe in.

Why not get mon, why not get paid for that, especially as you're building an audience.

Yeah, we had a conversation with a guest, I don't know, early on, maybe episode 20 something. Um, Lucas Kraft Mm-hmm. Wonder Bely, he created a new kind of antacid and we asked about marketing and he said, I hate sales. I hate marketing. I. But when you are so passionate about something that he, you know, he related it to Taylor Swift and saying like, how many people have tried to sell you on going to a Taylor Swift concert?

They don't get commissioned from that. They just, it's life changing for them to have gone to this show and they want you to experience what they've experienced and that's how he felt with selling his product. It's like, Hey, this changed my life. I want you to experience this like I have. And I think that's when we approach, um.

You know, affiliate marketing or selling anything from that perspective, like, and, and you, and you don't just sell out for a paycheck, then, uh, it becomes much easier to sell.

Yeah, and it's, I'll circle back to outsourcing. So one of the things that I think  blew me away, because I wasn't expecting this, I've always had businesses where I've had staff, but one of the things that blew me away was having our clients say things like, I feel like a real business owner now.

Now that I have a marketing virtual assistant helping me with all my content, being able to have creative conversations, you know, I love our, our weekly meetings. I feel like a real business owner or things like, I had no idea how much time I spent beating myself up because I couldn't do everything. I looked at all these other people and their online presence and all the things they were doing, and I'm just thinking how, you know, I've buying new calendars.

I'm trying to figure out new time management systems, and. At the end of the day, the people I think who are hugely successful learn to leverage other people's time. And so I was very surprised just to see how the confidence in a lot of our clients shifted when they started building a team. Even if that team member was, you know, just a software VA who works for them a couple hours a month, or the bookkeeping VA who works with 'em four or five hours a month.

It's amazing when you start to think I'm building something that's bigger than just me. And on the flip side of that, you know, in business it always needs to be win-win. You know, Steven, if I'm selling you something, it needs to be a win-win. It needs to be something that is gonna do what I say it's gonna do.

You know, it it, it's what you want or need to buy at that time and it needs to be a fair energy exchange. Jeanie and I joke, for us it has to be win-win, win because we want to make sure that, you know, obviously our business wins so we can stay in business, but we want our clients to be exceptionally happy.

With the things that they're outsourcing. And then the third leg of that is we want these fabulous people halfway around the world to get to work for amazing people and to get to have long-term employment. So it really is a trifecta when you get it right, of having people on your team. 

Yeah, and I think of, uh, di we had, uh, Dylan Jahrus, she's a Etsy coach, an Etsy. Business coach. Um, she had her own Etsy business for a number of years that was wildly successful, and now she's teaching others how to have successful Etsy businesses. And that's kind of her thing too, is like if you're gonna come to me, like I'm not cheap, but my number one goal is to get you,  like whatever my coaching costs, we're gonna get you that revenue. As quickly as possible so that now me coaching you is no longer a concern. Like you losing that money to me coaching you is no longer a concern. Now we can actually like focus on you growing this thing instead of you, like in your head about like, well, I paid $2,000 or whatever it is, and was that actually worth it?

Like let's get, let's get over that. Let's get past that marker and then let's move on. 

Yeah. A another thing, um, that will make another thing that keeps people from outsourcing is because it's a lot safer. To sit behind your computer and edit videos or hang out in social media in Canva, creating social media posts, that's a lot safer than following up with the person you talked to two days ago and to see if they're ready to pull the trigger or going out to a different networking event.

Sometimes spending hours trying to figure out your ads. So a lot of times people don't outsource because it's a way to play small and safe by continuing to do tasks that aren't going to move your business forward. So when it comes to coaching, that's one of the things we talk a lot about is your virtual assistant is buying you time.

Your most valuable asset is time. You're buying your time back, but what are you gonna do with that time? So let's say it took you. Eight hours a month to do four hours of bookkeeping that a bookkeeper could have done. What are you gonna do with that eight hours? And first of all, that bookkeeping, it wasn't just about the eight hours it took you to do it.

It was about all the times you put it off and all the energy that was drained from you thinking about doing it and all the stress around, ugh, when am I gonna do it right? So. We wanna figure out how they can take not just that time, but that renewed energy that they have from not doing tasks that they don't love doing.

How can they apply that in areas of their business that are gonna help them make a lot more money? How can they, you know, figure out what's gonna move the needle the most in their business and  spend their time and energy there?

That's really good. Um, I would love to keep going. I want to, uh, be respectful of your time and, um, uh, I, but for those listening that, uh, love what you have to say and want to learn more, uh, maybe have a session with you or what have you. Where can we learn more about you? Where can we find you on socials?

Please Just plug for us all you got.

so I would say, first of all, just go to six figure business coaching.com. We're in the middle of updating our website and it's gonna be fabulous. We have lots of resources there, so I would say start there. I also have a free guide. It's called Double Your Income With a Marketing va, and you can get that at Outsourcing for Bosses, outsourcing for bosses.com.

 With that, let's transition to our listener question, um, which we've kind of already discussed today. It's, but it's, it's a YouTube question rather than podcasting. It's kind of in a similar vein, so you might have similar answer, but it's about, um, starting a YouTube channel with. No revenue, but I'm not a good editor.

I'm not good at, you know, the creative arts, but I want to start this channel. Um, what's your advice to somebody thinking about getting into the YouTube space that doesn't, maybe isn't super tech savvy, but also is nervous about spending money on, you know, VAs or, you know, editors, that kind of thing?

so first of all with YouTube, remember  it's a search engine, so go into it with a strategy for all of your keywords and knowing what you want to be known for. Sometimes people go in with too many topics and then they're known for nothing. So really dial in what you want to be seen as the expert in.

Um, and then really dial in on your keywords, making sure you have that down. And sometimes that's hard because it can feel like it gets in the way of the creative space of I just wanna create this content and have fun with it. But you also need to do it in a smart way where you're creating content using those keywords and it's, you know, it gets easier with time is all I can say.

But the other thing is. You know, we talked about earlier not quitting your job. So if you have a job, you know, maybe take a little bit of your, you know, your income and, and dedicate that to having someone do all of your editing and, and all of your graphic design and uploading your videos and all the SEO If you are going to start the channel, you absolutely cannot afford support.

I would say create a schedule for yourself. Maybe spend one day a week where you do you, you record four or five episodes because maybe that's the fun part. That's what you love doing. So do your keyword research, have fun recording it, and then again, block time to just get in there and get all of the editing done for all of them at once.

Figure out how to block your time based on your energy too. And I think it's also important if you're going to do that for yourself, make sure you keep your commitment to yourself. If you say, I have a four hour block of time on Friday, and that's when I'm gonna edit my videos, keep your commitment and make that happen.

And editing is like any other skill, a little bit easier over time. But if, if you're not starting a YouTube channel. Because of all of that, I would definitely, definitely reach out to us and let's have a conversation, because getting the support you need to build a a, a  YouTube channel is a lot easier than you may think.

Yeah, let me just, let me just chime in there, because we didn't start our YouTube channel until like the other day. Uh, because of that, I was, I, I was good at audio editing and never, um, kind of dived into the world of video editing. Even though we had all this video content, we always have video interviews and I just didn't feel like I had the time or the energy to invest.

Uh, into learning a new software. And then once then my, actually, my MacBook crapped out on me and I lost access to my editing software and I was forced to do something else. And I was like, well, I have to learn a new software. Might as well be video. And it took me like a day to figure it out. So it's not that hard.

 Yeah, and it is funny 'cause that's something that I've been talking to him for a long time about like we both have our assigned things that we do, so to speak, in just running the show. And it's something I've been talking to him about for a while and when that happened it was like, so do you wanna do this now?

Can we do this now? So funny how, you know, funny how life decides to get in the way and make it happen. Yeah, yeah. There's lots of different ways to edit, you know, a video, so. YouTube is one of the largest PO podcasting platforms out there. So it's smart that you put it on there. And for a lot of people, all they do is run, run it through AI and take out the ums and the the long pauses and it's done.

You know, some people wanna put B roll in and images in to make it more visually interesting for people who actually like to watch podcast. So it really just depends on your strategy. But you know, at the end of the day, if you're a business owner, I don't think video's going away. And I think with AI it's.

It may be more important now than ever because people are going to crave more connection and you can tell, you know, your bot's talking to my bot on social media. Like, you know, we're already seeing all these canned conversations and all this stuff that's being written by ai. So we're already losing that, that connection to people and I think video is gonna play a huge role in that moving forward.

It's funny you say that. I saw, um, Instagram comment. Debate back, going back and forth. And there's some telltale signs of when AI is used like the hyphen, right? Everybody knows that when there's a hyphen, nobody uses the hyphen to like separate. Yeah, you, everybody uses commas. Nobody's using hyphens. So you know, chat PT is used when there's a hyphen, right?

Well, this Instagram, back and forth in the comment sections was all chat PT, it's like my bot talking to your bot. And I'm like, let's just, you guys aren't even talking to each other. So what's the point of this debate? So it's just funny that like where AI has, how far it's come and like kind of where it's going, that we're not even having human conversations anymore.

Yeah, the AI agents are amazing. They're, they're moving at lightning speed and getting better and better, you know, so it, it, it really is a matter of how, as business owners, how do we stay connected to people? And the other thing, you know, if you're thinking about starting a podcast, I think one of the things that I love about podcasting is most of the people that I've conversations with, whether it's when I'm a guest or when we have guests on our show, is they're really committed to having real relationships.

Right. You know, we will end up probably wrapping up this interview and then you guys will chat for a little while and I'm sure that we will then stay connected. We'll find another way to connect with each other because I feel like there's something different about having these long form conversations that really help you get to know a person or get to know them enough that you want to learn more about them.

And so I think podcasting's huge in that relationship building area. Yeah. If you're doing relationships right, that's definitely the case. Yeah. Although, although sometimes I, I, I wouldn't say this has necessarily been the case for our show, but, you know, within an hour you're like, I could, I could never see this person again, and we're good.

I don't know that we've had any of those. Nope, nope. Definitely not the case here either, so. Yeah.

 Sorry. I was gonna say, over the episodes we've done over the years, we've definitely had a few where you ask the first question and they just talk for the whole time.

And so it's, it's kind of exhausting. But also they're nervous, right? They're so, they're excited and they're nervous. So a lot of times we'll reach back out and say, Hey, like, the audio isn't great. Can we coach you on this? Can we do it again? Right? 'cause we wanna make them look good. Our goal is to make our guests look like rock stars.

We've had those where, um. You don't even really have to ask a question. They have, they've listened to an episode, they kind of know what to expect and they just talk for 10 minutes and we're like, that's great. I mean, you kind of answered all our questions, but it's not super conversational though.

 But we really appreciate this conversation. We've loved having you on and kind of getting to pick your brain on, uh, you know, a lot of times, like I said, we, we, um, get to interview about, like, I started this pro, I created this product, I created this business for you. It's kind of cool to like get to hear both sides, like you started a business coaching businesses, so get getting to like, hear how you started it, getting to hear how you coach people has been super insightful.

So we're just grateful for, uh, for you being candid with us today.

Thank you for having me. I had a great time.

Absolutely.