Giving honest advice to 9 Business Owners Leila Answers Live

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Giving honest advice to 9 Business Owners | Leila Answers Live

Summary

Based on the transcript provided, here are the key takeaways and advice on various topics, presented as if I am Leila Hormozi:

  • Offer guarantees in your business to distinguish yourself from the competition, but understand that such promises may attract skepticism and claims of being a scam. Stay confident in the value you provide — if there’s no truth to the scam claims, focus on delivering consistent quality and not the negative noise.

  • If your business faces criticism, evaluate addressing the issue versus ignoring it. Sometimes, addressing negative attention can inadvertently highlight the criticism. Weigh the benefits and downsides carefully; often, choosing to ignore and outshine with excellent work and louder positive messaging may be the better strategy.

  • When negative attention arises, trust in an “Extinction curve” — with time, the negative chatter will decline if you don't feed it. Focus on what your brand is about, rather than what it's not, to attract the right customers and repel those who aren't a fit.

  • Internally, when facing skepticism among employees, get loud with your values and mission. If an employee doesn’t align with your company's direction, it’s okay for them to leave. Align short-term and long-term goals for a healthier business.

  • In scaling your business, seek a balance between growth and personal well-being. Learn from past challenges and be patient and methodical in your approach.

  • For businesses striving to build a community for client acquisition, focus on a blend of social media marketing and personal outreach, especially on LinkedIn, to bolster credibility and attract ideal clients.

  • When you have a business idea, consider going all in if the side hustle can match or exceed your current income, and the risk appears low. Before jumping from a job to a side hustle and then starting a business, ensure you're not splitting your attention too thin and have enough financial cushion.

  • Make decisions based on what’s sustainable and enjoyable over the long term, even if it means adjusting your strategy. Keep the hiring and content creation process streamlined and delegate where possible. Always maintain authenticity in your interactions, never let others impersonate you.

  • Seek feedback from your clientele on the kind of content they resonate with and focus on creating more of that content while also developing a solid outbound strategy.

  • Choose clients judiciously, valuing your growth experiences and being slower in accepting clients can be signs of a matured entrepreneur.

  • When it comes to selecting a niche for your service, look at the cost of acquisition and referral rates. High referral rates often indicate a fitting niche. Consider client retention and assess whether your clients resonate with the value you’re providing.

  • Lastly, always communicate transparently and frequently within your team to align expectations and maintain a healthy company culture.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest implementing some strategies based on the experiences and advice discussed:

  1. Offer unique guarantees in your business to stand out, but be ready for skepticism. Keep providing great value, and don't get caught up in negative comments. Focus on the positive impact you're making.

  2. If your business gets criticized, think if it's worth addressing the issue. Sometimes, ignoring criticism and continuing to deliver excellent work is the best response. Remember the "Extinction curve"– negative talk usually fades over time if you don't fuel it.

  3. When facing skepticism at work, be extra loud about your values and mission. It's healthy for employees who don't align with your vision to move on. Make sure your mission is clear to everyone in your team.

  1. For personal well-being while scaling your business, learn from past challenges. Be patient and methodical, growing at a pace that keeps you healthy and happy.

  2. To build a community for client acquisition, focus on using social media, like LinkedIn. This will help in attracting the right clients for your business.

  3. Go all in on your business idea if it can match your income with low risk. Make sure you have a financial safety net before jumping into it full-time.

  1. Always aim for sustainable and enjoyable strategies for your business. Delegate tasks and keep processes simple.

  2. Gather feedback from clients on what content they like. Use this information to create more relevant content while also having a solid strategy to reach out to new potential clients.

  3. Be selective with clients. Taking time to accept new clients can actually signal maturity in your business decisions.

  1. When picking a niche, consider referral rates and client retention to ensure you provide value that resonates with your clients.

  2. Communicate frequently and clearly within your team to maintain a productive company culture. Align everyone with the company's long-term goals.

These points can steer your growth trajectory, minimize risks, and focus your efforts where they are most impactful.

Quotes by Leila Hormozi

"You don't need to think a certain way, you don't need to feel a certain way about yourself to be successful"

– Leila Hormozi

"The best case scenario is that you get influencers who have large audiences to be in the beta groups, they exchange their testimonials so that you can use that"

– Leila Hormozi

"The biggest thing is not giving up"

– Leila Hormozi

"I think the more that you can get them to focus on their response in a frustrating situation like their level of frustration tolerance, for example, that is going to help them"

– Leila Hormozi

"I don't rely on the dialogue because dude, the dialogue was not good, the dialogue was like 'you suck', the dialogue was like 'this isn't gonna work'"

– Leila Hormozi

Full Transcript

pulled in about 10 people who I'm going to answer their questions live Jimmy do you want to go ahead and bring up the first guest hi Leila hi it's Soma Soma that's it very pretty so you're the founder of an actor Academy that's pretty cool yeah I mean it sounds exactly like the name it's an academy for actors I myself am an actress I've been acting since I was really little and I decided to start my own acting school really and yeah it's something a little different than most people do because it's a very uncommonitized industry yeah and Hollywood is very tight-lipped and hard to break into and that's something that I really wanted to change but in doing that um I faced a lot of I guess pushback from the industry yeah so my question for you is well I mean maybe I should give some background first I read 100 million dollar offers and it really changed the way I was looking at my business so I decided to offer a guarantee in offering a guarantee it really it shook the industry I guess where people started saying that that scam-like behavior it's a red flag for a coach to be able to guarantee results or guarantee you a role even though of course I have it in writing that I'll give a refund if I can't do what I do um and it's impacted my business a lot and so I've gotten a defamation lawyer I'm trying to do what I can but I guess I'm wondering like is this something that you fight is this something that you stand up for yourself for is this something you just ignore and try to elevate your business and until it becomes white noise or How would how would you handle this let me ask you a few questions which is do you believe that there's any truth to that no not at all oh my God because all my customers are happy they love me like they're so happy with what I do understood okay that was the first question I want to get out we don't know each other so I'm trying to get together that's true are you a family is there any truth to that no uh I didn't think so but I wanted to know so the biggest thing that I will say is that you know there's people that say stuff about us you know when we ran gym launch we would have smear campaigns we would have people literally running ads about us and how we're a scam and we're this or that and all these things everyone says you're a scam until you get to the top in many cases like until you have gained trust with an audience gained trust with your customers enough like a broad enough customer base people will assume if you are showing like outsized results and maybe like you were something that people don't understand they will underestimate you right or they will say you're invalid you're a fraud or these things whatever word you want to use you're not real you're not legit right and I think that the best approach that you can take is completely ignoring you and I swear to God every single person tells me they're like you don't understand they've got this they've got that they've got all these things if you believe that you are in the right and that you are not doing anything wrong and you're like I'm not then what good does it do to address the negative attention that's what I would outweigh is like what's the applied to me addressing this attention and what's the downside okay so let's play out what are the benefits of me addressing what people say well the benefits could be that strangers that don't know who I am and may never buy for me may now see that people were calling me a scam and I am now addressing that I am not a scam and I also have no proof of that but I'm going to tell people that I'm not a scam you fair enough fair enough the downside is that I draw attention to the name scam I now associate myself with the word scam and so when people see me they remember that I told them that I'm not a scam but even though you say I am not they all they hear is you scam yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so what's the alternative right because that's like there's no Direction there it's just like [ __ ] okay ignore it like I call it an Extinction curve so when somebody comes to you and they're constantly pestering you like maybe they're coming in they're like messaging your scam you're scam your scam everybody has an extension curve which means they will bug you to a point where it will slowly die down so it might be like they're saying it three times a week might go to two times a week might go to one time a week might go to zero some people have long Extinction curves somebody might be after you for six months saying that you're a scam but it will eventually die if you do not feed it just like a fire now what do you do instead is in order to outweigh that in my opinion you get more loud about what you are talking about what you're not doesn't help your brand but talking about what you are will help grow your brand I don't feel like you're the kind of person that you would want to speak negatively of others because I think Brands built by talking against and talking negatively of others sure they can get big Brands but what kind of brand you want in this industry what you want you want to build trust with people then speak about who you are rather than what you're not I think that that's the route to go I would double down on what your message is to your audience I would get louder so not only are you ignoring these people but you're also getting louder about what you are and then you just gotta do it for years until they just eventually like [ __ ] off like they want your attention that's it yeah fair enough I I love that um in addition to that since it has affected my business and I mean unfortunately a couple of my employees are like hey we don't really like what's going on here why are people talking about you this way how would you address that internally when like they're almost I mean I've told them to look at you know I've told them to look at the people they're working with the clients the proof is in the pudding that like people love us are you know our return rate or people wanting to leave or turnover rate is super low people really retain with us um but they're still so skeptical and dubious are those people that you let go of or those people that you try to change their mindset I think that again you get louder with your message but you do it inside so like whatever you do internally in like externally you've got to get loud about your message you've got to do the same internally I've done that I mean in gym launch there was a time where I was like man there's a lot of people here I don't feel like genuinely want the best for the business right and I made this entire presentation for the team and I said this is who we are this is what we are this is how we operate as a team if you don't jive with that I am totally cool with that it means nothing to me if you don't drive with this but what does mean is that you should consider if you should be working here and I had two people leave they quit right after that call and I said I love you guys I respect that you actually opted out based on what I said as long as you are you are presenting an accurate depiction to the people in your business of who you are and what you stand for you're not for everybody and that is totally okay but you've got to be comfortable enough getting loud about who you are that it repels the people who aren't about that very cool um well thank you for your time and thanks for answering my question absolutely let me know how it goes I'm curious me too bye okay bye hey what's going on what's up Marcel those things first I gotta say thank you and Alex uh I joined gym launch 2017 to 2018 and it completely changed the way I look at business how I handle business how I talk to clients um your name was familiar and I was like yeah um you got I gotta tell her I tell you everyone about you guys the books like it's just has been gold for me uh it's helped me get a lot of clients that I thought I would never get back story was I got the gym grew to two gyms and I don't want to say it to mess up the algorithm by the algorithm of God so 2020 when the world ended I actually lost everything they repossessed my car and went into a huge depression moved across country so we did another business built two portfolios ended up in a bad partnership lost that and now I'm building another brand uh slowly it's growing but my question to you was this how do you all handle um scaling your business and burning out while the you know I don't want to say the world is at an end why does the world feel like it's going to end at least for me I've gone through uh Helen high water way too many times so it's gotten to the point where you know I usually don't second guess myself I just do it and say [ __ ] it worse is gonna happen to lose money or we'll do it again right and now at this time this time I have been so reserved that there are days that I even reject clients I've never done that and it's gone to the point where you know I have to find the bankruptcy you just you're nervous about everything so how do you deal with something like that have you learned from those experiences right now sounds like you've learned a lot I've learned a lot and it sounds like maybe what punishing experiences like that actually do is they cause us to slow down and think more through our decisions do you think that that's what you're doing I think so I think I'm very reserved I feel to the point where if I don't click with the client at this point we're not gonna We're Not Gonna proceed why is that bad I don't know it's I was never like that I was like yeah man [ __ ] it let's get this done get a you know rock and roll move on to the next thing now I'm just like let's chill out man like you know what I mean because you've seen the consequences of bringing people on who maybe aren't the best fit and that you don't get along with right I think so good thing and I think it maybe it doesn't feel normal to you because it you probably are used to a faster Pace but like I think a lot of the signs of a matured entrepreneur is learning to be more patient and a little bit more methodical and I think the way in which negative experiences um help us is when we have negative emotions or negative associations they cause us to slow down so like does it feel good maybe not but like have you learned and are you implementing the learnings if so then that's good because it sounds like dude you got like beat up but at the same time like most people that are in your situation they get beat up and they would not be on here so they would be doing the same thing again you're not you're literally you learn from your experience like what more what more could you ask from from a human on this Earth cool yeah my other Mentor said the same thing he's like congratulations you went bankrupt I was like dude what like I think it's just like I think you're just beating yourself up like business is hard there's a lot of easily made Net Zero decisions where it's like you make one decision and it literally levels out the whole thing doesn't matter how many other good decisions you made that one decision picking the wrong partner destroys the business right the unfortunate thing is that sometimes we don't learn ahead enough of time to learn what those Net Zero decisions are and so then we continue to make them but now I think that it has slowed you down enough that you're being methodical and you can get ahead of those decisions and say okay let's be methodical in decision making there's what's going to happen the next 10 minutes and then there's what's going to happen in 10 years if I do this and I think that somebody can think through that frame and say it needs to have a positive for both right like how can we make it a win-win in the short term and the long term it sounds like what you were doing is you had short-term wins sacrificing long-term growth of the company or you know health of the company and now it sounds like you're saying I need to get short and long-term aligned and I think that that's like dude that's just a sign that you've grown that's awesome awesome thank you I think you're doing great and I think it's really [ __ ] inspiring that you're on here doing this a third time because most people don't even do it once thank you for everything and uh just keep on crushing it you know thanks Marcel I appreciate it too thank you hi Melanie hello hello hello first and foremost thank you so much for having me Layla oh absolutely I appreciate you being here and taking the time at like random random time on a Thursday my pleasure my honor so uh let's jump right into it so Melody Patterson CEO and founder of Integrity Global Logistics which is a 3pl transportation and Logistics and then team Integrity Knowledge Center which is a premium consulting company where we guide small to medium firms into Government Contracting so we are a proud certified minority woman-owned Transportation Company um and so I can identify with um you and your Alpha characteristics working in a male dominated industry my question for you is although I have a ton of questions my main question for you um so we're in the process of scaling and growing the company marketing is a huge component okay right now we're in a space where we kind of have a free marketing via social media platforms my question is how do you have time to create the content guide the captions the content and the brand as well as truly work as a CEO of your company yeah I think it's different for everybody based on the demands of the company the team that you have and what your goals are in making content um you know when I set out to make content it wasn't like I'm going to make content at the expense of the company it was I know in the beginning it may be harder to make content because we don't have a full team yet but I the goal was always can we move more from you know like manufactured straight to camera content like eventually one day I'd love it to be like 100 captured right um and can we do it in ways like like even doing this right here yeah sure honestly I just feel like it's way more valuable because like I love these conversations and like I have a hard time I feel like I'm like very uh serious when I'm like staring at a camera and I'm like four people are watching me in a room and I'm like you know what I mean for sure yeah it's just like it feels not natural um so I think it's been a journey and it's also not been perfect at all so like in the beginning we had just sold our companies and we had like three people on the team like [ __ ] I don't have that much to do right which I kind of did but at the same time I didn't because I wasn't managing a whole team of people or functional heads and so I had a lot more time to make like direct to camera content and actually what happened was like just a few months ago I had a moment where I was just like losing it I was like I don't have time to prep for these content sessions anymore like I don't have time to make this anymore I don't have time and what I'm super thankful for was I communicate that to the team and they were like then we need to change the strategy like it's this needs to be sustainable for you and if it's not sustainable for you and you can't like completely focus on what you need to do in the company then it's not going to work for long term it's just not going to work and so is it perfect no and but that's not my goal my goal is not to be perfect with making content my goal is to do it in a way that I find enjoyable and then I can keep doing you know what I mean like if I only made direct to camera which I think like I think Alex is phenomenal at making that like I don't feel phenomenal at making it and I also feel like I just feel like I'm the worst person of myself when I make it like I feel like uber serious I feel like dry I feel like my humor doesn't come out like I should be like and so I recently was like I want to switch to more like live engaging with people like capturing like I just did the video we dropped today was like A Day in the Life on YouTube like that's I'm trying to do because I feel like I can sustain that but the difference is like here's the few choices I made because I knew that that was the strategy I was gonna need one is that we had all vendors in the beginning and I was looking at that and I was like you can't do that if you really want them to be able to accommodate you like It's just tough because the vendor has their own agenda and they have like this is the package we have for clients and so it was like I was still having to do a lot of QA there was a lot that was going out that was like more optimized for views and not brand but I was like confused but I like [ __ ] hate this video and I seem like a complete [ __ ] like I don't want that going out on public like you know what I mean like absolutely yeah like and so I think that that's kind of been the strategy is like first we had vendors and then we hired Caleb and I was like okay we gotta take this all in house right he's like yes so that's been the goal we've just been taking it all in-house over time and because of that the team we interact and they know like okay we need to shift because like Layla's really busy right now so we need to shift to something else or like we need to [ __ ] for Alex because he's like heads down writing the book right now and they're able to accommodate us because they understand that we want content to be something that we can do forever not something that we're just doing for like a year now with that you know how important it is to document all of your processes and develop a system are you doing that are you Hands-On with that task or are you saying hey look that get that Melanie the first thing that we did was I was like I need to hire somebody to be over all this and that's when we brought in Caleb I have not touched literally any of it I don't know what the systems look like people literally think I'm lying when I say they they're like what do you use to edit I have no idea how we edit videos what we edit videos half the time like they take my content and really do all of it like I literally just am on camera that's it so no approvals um I will approve content from new people on the team if they are so I think there's a difference if it's things that I'm saying like videos I don't approve any thing like that if you catch me on video like that I would rather I don't like the whole like I have to approve and then it goes out I think that they learn faster if it goes out and then they see that maybe I don't like it or that the audience doesn't like it like I I would rather let them have that to own themselves because I look at it like if I want to create a Big Brand it's not just Layla creating it's like a whole team and so I don't want to steal that opportunity from them I don't like to approve too much ahead of time the only times I will is if it's like if it would be long form written word I will write that like I don't necessarily like unless they find it from like they'll find stuff that I wrote years ago or find stuff that I've written in other contexts or repurpose on platforms but organic long form written content will come from me but that's it and that's like really infrequent wow so that's actually you behind the captions in some of those captions with that is that really you commenting and engaging um in the DMS and things of that nature yeah nobody else is going to pretend to be me like that doesn't make any sense to me I don't think that that's like good for the brand I had a Twitter Ghostwriter for a while I think he did a great job but I just didn't feel like it was me so it's always me commenting it's always me in the DMs like I like but I like that stuff you know what I mean like I genuinely if I can answer someone's question and I have time then I will I do it between meetings I do it when I'm in the bathroom that was the last question that I had are you blocking out some time to say hey look let's go ahead and respond to some of these DMS some of these comments before we hop into this next meeting when we're in the Uber or when we're driving into town or whatever the case may be yeah I if I have time it's definitely like the Natural Instinct of what to do so I will do it between sets at the gym like I'm not saying this is like a um this is not ideal like between sets at the gym I'll do it when I'm like between meetings I'll do it okay when I'm having it when you have time I don't like set the time for it because I think um some days I have no time and some days I have an hour awesome love it love it love it all right Layla until the next time take care thank you appreciate you and your team having me on here absolutely how do you say your name I don't say wrong Psy yeah sorry okay perfect so the question I had was uh me and a couple partners are in the process of making a web app that's for e-learning what we have in mind for the launch of it is to build an audience before launch to like get them engaged uh and then also hit heavy on marketing through social media after the launch because the Target demographic is like 18 to like 40. um that we're planning for it so my question was like how would you go about like retaining that would it be through like content creation or uh promotions you mean gaining the audience yeah so do you have any audience right now no we didn't start yet explain the value that this is going to bring to the customers like what is the primary problem that solves it's like course creation and it's also like where people can buy those same courses so it's similar to like you to me except it has more features like we're also going to integrate like tutoring into it so it's like an all-in-one for like students or anyone just uh looking to gain some skills that'll help them in the business World okay that makes sense how on uh beta test yet like have you gone through the different phases of like you know two to three beta groups uh no because we're still in the process of coding it that's fair I feel like I would be doing you a disservice to tell you that you should build an audience right now and start marketing it before you've done that so like if I were you because here's how I Market everything that like when we start a different business the way that we're able to Market it is from the results from the beta test that we've run by giving it away for free okay so like when we first built Allen our software company we brought in we basically had three phases to the beta which was like okay when we have X amount of features we bring in this many people and we have like a contract we do a call with them we explain like it's a piece of [ __ ] right now whatever like it's in test mode it's all these things uh but here's what we would like you to do will you comply Etc um and then we run the beta with them for a period of time say a month bring in phase two a few more people a few different kinds of people a few different kinds of businesses phase two beta and then face and it increases in size and in what features they have access to on each one because we've been developing in the background and then what we do is we take the testimonials from those people using it and we use those to market the product now the thing is is that if you don't get testimonials from that the product's probably not ready to Market because here's the thing is like it is freaking like you're in a competitive industry and so I would not I would be really cognizant of not using not not using promotion as a crutch for the product because at the end of the day what's the goal of the business is it to sell it or to keep it or cash flow um well I have in mind to keep it but I don't know what my business partners have in mind so well first piece of advice is I would make sure you guys are all on the same page because I think uh how you build it and what your the end goal is is going to dictate literally all of these decisions I see okay yeah because in terms of like if you want to just promote the [ __ ] out of this thing and just get people on it and like you know they're they're satisfied um but there's a lot of competition so it's like you know it's a tough market and it's like okay well what's the turn and I can tell you that I have friends that have you know 500 million SAS businesses that can barely get this thing to [ __ ] sell because their churn is 20 you know monthly which is like a tro you know it's just like frightening to an investor so it's like your end goal can dictate what you do now and what the strategy for the business is if it is you know cash flow and you want to keep it for the long haul then like I do suggest no matter I mean honestly I don't serious with any approach it's just first starting with the betas expanding with the betas allowing those to give you the information to make the product what it needs to be upon launch and then asking those people basically in exchange for doing the beta and me giving it to you for free can I use your testimonial to market the product okay and then I would use those I mean the best case scenario is that you get influencers who have large audiences to be in the beta groups they exchange their testimonials so that you can use that but it all relies on it has to be dialed because it's just gonna obviously it'll backfire if not so I would feel I would make sure that you're in a place where you feel confident in the delivery of the product before you go into doing that at least like you know MVP that you're that has like at least a decent ux experience you know what I mean beta one like you can't no ux for beta one you need some um and then move across the phases and I would also ask them run a price sensitivity test to Beta group three so go look up um gosh Patrick Campbell they basically have all the information on how you can price your SAS product for going to Market I would follow that and I I know that it's going to talk about like beta groups and running surveys to those beta groups of what the price could be and then that can also dictate when you go to market okay does that make sense oh yeah yeah yeah for sure and um when we do these beta tests like are do you suggest like just like putting it out on Instagram or something because we don't have any like followers or anything no I would individually I mean put it on Instagram sure like I don't think it's not worth doing but I think I would individually like send a custom like very personalized message or even a gift to the people that would be your ideal beta testers okay like who are people who are influencers but like Scrappy enough that they would be interested in trying something new yeah yeah I have taken risks on people who have new stuff because like we like that and it's interesting there's some people who maybe they wouldn't because they don't care or whatever I would also add that some of these people it may be their team that will be running the beta not them okay yeah so like I said there's like two parts to it so one person can like also create courses and then they could also like buy courses from uh the people who created it so I've made like a list of like 500-ish um influencers that like have expertise in certain field uh Fields like summer encoding some are in like um you know financial markets whatever it is and so what you're suggesting is like I hit up each one of those people individually and really personalize the message and ask them to try it out and that would be like the beta test try it out it's free for them try and blow their minds like in as many ways possible so you can get other stuff that you can stack on top of that like just make it a good experience for them and then in exchange for them trying out and doing the beta or completing the beta process they you get the testimonial for free okay got it thanks so much that helps out a lot I didn't think about it like that yeah absolutely yeah thank you a lot dude yeah thank you have a good one hi hi is it shaking yes it is so cool so what what did you want to talk about today I'm struggling right now with helping my team deal with the stress emotionally you know we're in a business that goes from zero to a hundred constantly and they have stress that's coming from our developers and then stress that's coming from the clients and I don't know how to support them properly no I hear what you're saying which is like you don't want them to be discontent you want to make sure that they like enjoy where they're working um and all those things which I think is good intentions I'll tell you a few things and you tell me if it resonates um I think first off is something that I learned in my journey um managing a lot of people in you know high growth highly stressful environments um is the value of not stealing a growth opportunity from them so many times I protected people in my company because I felt like protecting them and interfering with the situation and getting in there and talking to the person for them de-escalating a situation for them was the right thing to do but what I realized is that that was basically signaling to them that I felt they were incapable of doing it themselves and what I realized was that what I actually needed to do was be the person that could give them the tools to then interfere those situations themselves so if the developers are difficult to communicate with rather than me interfering and going and talking directly to the developers I would say you know what I understand you're having a difficult time with the developers let's get on a call and let's script out what you can say the next time the situation occurs and then what I would do is I would role play it with them I'm not kidding so every time that somebody has had like a disagreement with somebody on the team oftentimes I'll think on it and then a lot of times the conclusion is like they need to be the one to say this thing and I will help them script it out and then practice how they're going to present it to that person because I think it is like that's good but it's not enough because like when you're in the situation their emotions are high and like as your emotions are your IQ goes down and so people just like go to whatever the default is if you've practiced what you're going to say enough then you can practice it in the situation I think that that is one of the most useful things I've done I'll say that the second piece um to helping manage frustration is not making it about the situation right so there's the developers and then there's your employee and I think that you have to divorce the two they cannot control what the developers are going to do nor can you but what you can do is use that as an opportunity to talk about okay so when you're in a frustrating situation where somebody upsets you how do you react and that's where you get to work with them on that it's not about the developers it's about how that what their response is in a situation where something happens that they don't like and I think that the more that you can get them to focus on their response in a frustrating situation like their level of frustration tolerance for example that is going to help them like objectively one objectively look at the situation but two I think that it's much more empowering because what they're feeling right now is like well we need to control the developers and she can come here and control them but that doesn't add value to the employee that doesn't help them in life it doesn't drive them forward so I think if you can do those two things which is like help separate their perspective or help basically divorce the two in their minds that they see this is about your reaction to the situation not to the developers like they don't have to this doesn't have to do with them right and then the second is work with them on scripting because I think that the worst thing that we can do as Leaders is we say oh just like work it out with them go do this go do that but it's like what do I do you know like I don't have experience tell me what it looks like and I think the second best thing to like watching you do it right is that you helped script it and role play it with them does that resonate at all no I thought it makes so much sense it's like I never you know like I I don't know if it's like the CEO mindset but like I'm always like used to like stepping in and jumping in and yeah I it's I feel like that that will give them a lot more experience than just watching me do it or just me mothering them and just doing something that they could be doing and growing from and it makes like a lot of sense yeah and I think it's it's super typical right because it's like we feel like well they don't have control of this other person so and I may so I should intercept but the thing is is that what that does is that you train them that they only stop the situation when you are present so it will continue to happen behind your back because they won't learn how to actually behave differently they'll just learn oh and she's here we can't behave that way but when she's gone we'll behave that way again but if you cannot interfere and then give them the tools to to learn to manage their own emotional regulation in those situations and then give them the tools of like how to actually respond in those situations I think that they will come out way better on the other side and I also think that the your reaction when they come to you and they say I'm so frustrated with these developers the more that you make it like it's an emergency the more they believe it is it's bad so if you're like okay let's let's give it a day or two and then let's tackle this on Monday they're like oh like interesting that you would do that and some people might even at first be like very shocked like why would you not treat this as an emergency right but the more that you can treat it like this is okay and because it is it is okay and it is normal it's part of work then they will take that and respond and it'll probably de-escalate their emotional response once they start seeing that you don't stop drop and roll and interfere you know what I mean yeah no it makes so much sense like to the point that I'm like why did I not think about that before thank you so much hi Nate how you doing Layla thanks for the opportunity so I'm gonna start writer uh content creator and like an inspirational speaker and I'm really interested I'm a big believer on it's not what we do but it's who we are and so the question I wanted to ask you for a lot of my audience and and for myself as well like talk to me about like the dark times of Entrepreneurship right like I've heard Alex is part of you know when like all the money left the account like what is the internal dialogue that's going through your mind and how are you getting through those times of like this is so uncertain like what the [ __ ] are we gonna do like I mean I think that I I would bet everybody watching this that's an entrepreneur has at the moments where you're like am I a complete [ __ ] idiot like people think I'm this like I'm totally a sham like I'm really not as smart as I think I am like I don't think I can do this maybe I'm like completely in over my head like everybody has those thoughts you know like I mean [ __ ] I don't I still have them like it's not like I go away I think here's the thing is like I think we all have those like really messed up thoughts about how it's like it's always the same [ __ ] right it's just like one show me a loser who is concerned with doing well this is the what I call like the downside of The Upside like when you care a lot about something you also get overly concerned with it and then you have thoughts like that worst case scenario I'm not good enough all these things so I look at it as a gift because if you didn't have those thoughts you also probably wouldn't care enough to actually be successful was there like a like a mantra for you or something or like a quote or something that you were like grasping onto during during the time and like I said you know I've heard the story from Alex but I've never heard it from your angle like what is the dialogue within that to where you're like no we're not going back right I don't rely on the dialogue because dude the dialogue was not good the dialogue was like you suck the dialogue was like this isn't gonna work I'm [ __ ] 23 trying to run like a eight figure whatever business I've never managed people I have no experience my brain had no evidence that I would ever be successful doing that nor is it his and so what I did was I I committed to the process I was like if I stick with the plan and I follow the process and I take the actions that somebody who was successful and didn't have these thoughts would take then maybe I'd have a shot and that is literally what I've always relied on I tell people all the time you don't need to think a certain way you don't need to feel a certain way about yourself to be successful just like people who diet and they're like I don't believe I can lose weight if you eaten us in a calorie deficit no matter what thoughts come up into your head you will lose weight yeah so if you take the actions that somebody that wasn't having those thoughts would have so the the Mantra that I have had for that Nate is prove yourself wrong I have those thoughts that come in my head I just think to myself prove yourself wrong go take the action despite the fact that you don't believe that you can do it I look at it like my thoughts only affect certain amount like my behavior is actually what dictates most of the results of my life that is all that matters at the end of the day and the thing is the thoughts and the feelings will follow the behavior so once you achieve the thing then you will be like oh I think I can do this I think I could do that again you know the first time like I spoke on stage I literally kept thinking I was going to have a panic attack when I stepped on stage like mouth dry like sweating profusely whatever and I was like I'm totally having a panic attack when I go on stage I went on stage and I was totally fine so after that I was like oh I'm totally fine I can I can speak on stage but like I had to do the thing to to earn the evidence to prove to myself that I can do that you start stacking so much evidence of things that you've never thought were possible you're like what the [ __ ] can I do really I mean yes right and that's where confidence comes from is you've done enough things that you didn't believe you could do and you've done them anyways that then you feel confident when a new task comes I think I can do this because I have so much evidence now to prove why I can rather than why I can't what happens when all the evidence I'm collecting says I'm a [ __ ] up and I'm a failure and what I'm doing is not working I mean maybe what you're doing right now isn't working right now but maybe it'll work in six months I think that a lot of times what is lack of patience yeah it's that we want things to happen on our timeline I do too Nate I'm like why is that because it's not a com not 10 billion yet I'm very impatient about that but I recognize that things will not happen on my timeline and I think you have to give yourself Grace and I think that what most people do in the beginning is they have a very skewed understanding of how long things take the biggest thing is not giving up like I don't know many people who once they have confirmed with somebody who maybe is a few steps ahead that their strategy is sound yeah then they start working on it I don't know many people that when they have been confirmed that they have a sound strategy don't actually achieve it if they just continue to try because business is a lot harder than people think getting things started is way harder than you think yeah continuing to grow business is way harder you think and a lot of people put out the perception that it's a lot easier and more sexy than it is I mean we have a portfolio of companies and I see hundreds of companies a week their financials their mark their revenue they're trying most companies don't go like this it's like [ __ ] the bed grow [ __ ] the bed grow like it's it's in steps and I think most of life is that way everything's gonna take longer and be harder than you think it is thank you I appreciate your time hi Leila I I have to say you look fantastic I think nobody complimented that you look great um work with marketing and econ Talent um and right now we're at the stage where we want to build a community um for two reasons because one to attract the right people for our clients but at the same time also get um leads what kind of agency was it you said what agent recruitment recruitment yes um so my question is which marketing efforts would you recommend to prioritize in 2023 for a small business um like us for service business yeah how are you currently getting clients right now through Linkedin and referrals okay and so you don't need help finding more employees for the recruitment you need help finding more clients is that correct more clients yes that's that's probably the main thing why we're thinking about you know how to build a community how to get more visibility um right now how long have you been making content videos probably like six months okay posts and stuff for probably like three years okay and then when did it really start picking up I wouldn't say it's like uh at that Peak like you know where I get lots of Engagement and stuff so it's not like extremely um how to say uh popular um so that's why I'm trying to get to I would like to get more engagement more people to see uh those posts and and so on how many clients do you have right now 11 12 clients and they have like ongoing multiple recruitments with us um but then you know that's basically the number of clients we have at any given moment What's the clientele look like like what kind of business owners are you looking for between 10 to 50 people so we're focusing on small businesses rather than large ones because you know when they have a large company they usually have internal HR they have recruiters and so on so we try to focus on those small companies where you know they don't want to bring in house yet yeah I'm gonna go a different route with this than I thought I was gonna go which is most recruiting agencies that I know actually um work really well doing outbound um especially when you're a niche recruiting agency so I was thinking like between the content and the referrals however the only way to decide if you want to like which process would be you have to find out the lifetime value of a customer who comes through referral and lifetime value of one that comes from LinkedIn and it if the lifetime value of a customer from LinkedIn is like crazy high then I'd be like okay well let's just do more content that would be the first thing I'd say I'd be like what kind of volume are you putting out right now let's try and put out twice the volume and see what happens that would be the first thing that I would say to try now if the lifetime value of the customers from LinkedIn was actually not that high and maybe just in general like I don't know what your retention is for for customers I really like the outbound approach for your kind of business I've looked at a lot of recruiting agencies and the ones that scale the fastest and the biggest are really good at outbound specifically on LinkedIn so my thought would actually be that you make the content to build the credibility so that when you reach out to them outbound wise they actually respond not to attract them you'll get attraction through the content yes that's going to take you time you've only been doing it for six months one it's like you know the reason like our contest ticket well we behind the scenes six years built this thing sold it money money like people like oh wow that's so impressive so like there's that's like why they want to listen to our content versus if you're building something right now you don't yet have those mile markers of credibility yet and it's going to take time to stack those up but I think in the meantime like I really think that there's something to the outbound LinkedIn approach um and the fact that if you have a decent sized following with good content that resonates with the best customers that you want then they will actually answer when you DM them that is what I would okay so outbound um do you have any recommendations of I don't know books yeah I think there's two things one I mean there's a really good book that I wouldn't like it might be outdated now it's called impossible to inevitable talking about outbound it's not gonna be direct to LinkedIn so I would take that all just like take the greater Concepts which is like understand how to build an outbound machine the second piece to that is um in terms of being able to contact the people the reason why companies like yours I think have a hard time scaling is because like it is Niche like when it comes to recruiting like you do best doing Niche but it also means you have to be really good doing finding Niche clients and so what you have to focus in on is just the one method that you can crack of getting them to open the message so I can tell you like I had a guy who he was a LinkedIn whiz and it's like you know he messaged me a certain amount of times then got my email emailed me double emailed me sent me a video you know like most of the time it's volume like eventually somebody will crack whether it's on number seven that you've emailed them number 10 number 11. and so it's need to contact and then it as soon as they reply and then it is how much are you going to be able to follow up with that person now I would say that what will make this easy is like the better your content is the more valuable it is they're more likely to answer so I would just keep testing that I would ask the fines that you have what's the content that you resonate with the most what content you want to see I'd be putting that out and then I would be working on the outbound funnel which might mean maybe you need to consult with somebody who's like an outbound specialist which can find those people on LinkedIn you can just search outbound Specialists yeah um of course about that but I would be looking at other recruiting firms that are in different niches that use outbound which is like literally 90 of them and I'd be looking at what they're doing following them I'd be subscribing to them I'd be messaging them seeing how they interact getting them to interact with me and I'd be trying all those things it's going to take you time but you can figure it out okay amazing good lots of inspiration thank you so much hey Steve hey how you doing it's fantastic to meet you good thank you uh I've been consuming your content voraciously so it's it's surreal to actually be talking to you right now well I appreciate that a lot cool uh so my question is because I I was in corporate for like 22 years and just last year I decided to do my own business start my own business and I spent the last year and a half uh discovering the cliche that the riches are in the niches and so my question to you is uh how do you how do you test that your offer is uh or you pick the right Niche for your offer your service like what are the kpis or what kind of practical things that you would you do to taxi figure that out I would say that the you know the biggest ones are what's your cost of acquisition and what is your you know what does your referral rate look like so if you really like people who hit it out of the park with price you know getting the right product offer pricing in their Niche they typically have a very high referral rate now I don't know if you offer referrals but that would be something interesting to test what's the problem that we're solving what's the problem that's occurring right now that you think that changing that would solve so I haven't really uh honed in on a niche over the last year and a half so I'm getting ready to do that now and so I'm just thinking practically you know oh how do I know that how do I know that I've actually picked the right one as I'm going forward got it so what's your business right now so I I'm in Tech operation so I help you know businesses uh do things like automation integration um those kinds of things to boost their revenue scale I think that then for that when you're thinking of a niche are you thinking of a type of business or a size of business so that's the question so I'm thinking size of business like seven figure um or just just cross seven figures um B2B type business that's that's kind of where I'm settled but I I don't know if I if I have a good way to like I think it's like there's there's the two to three buckets I see which is like size of business which also equates to how many employees right because it's like you're at the point where they're not hiring somebody full-time to do the job because like you know it for many businesses like I know in gym launch we're big enough like I would never hire I would never bring Someone Like You on because like I have a huge team I need some in-house right but they probably won't use that you can get enough set up so that then eventually it can pass off somebody does that sound cracked yeah exactly yep so it's like business size employee size I think sticking with B2B or b2c makes a lot of sense and then I think a broad range of like what type of business like can you set up software you know is that is that beyond your scope is e-commerce beyond your scope that's what I would think through I think the size and the B2B that feels good as a niche like that feels like it could even be the niche in itself I think the third piece is like industry or even like vertical that you're in um because I don't know enough about tech automation to know if that would be outside like is it different for SAS versus uh well I mean it would be different tools but yeah yeah so it can affect um the kind of customers that I could work with yeah right so then maybe what we start with is you say this is the revenue probably when they're hitting that like they're at the like three to five million Mark is when they're like actually have the capacity to think about like oh I need to bring Tech in like that's the lowest of time I see it um unless they're software in which case they're usually a little more techy minimum three to five and then it's like okay uh B2B I think that's good to choose that because I think that a lot of the times um b2c might have a little bit easier automation so like B2B is usually a little bit more and then I'd be looking at okay is it gonna be SAS e-commerce service one of those and then I would test and then I would probably test with whichever one you think is more scalable if you want to like eventually hire a team and such like if I had to teach others to do this which Niche would I pick right not me as Steve but like if others had to duplicate this which one would it be that's what I'd start with and I would figure out which Niche is your bread and butter to get going with and then you can expand later but I feel like that's actually pretty spot on to start picking from those three buckets okay cool I'm just on the easy one today I just actually I didn't even started talking about I was like I it feels like uh because we actually bring in a lot of tech for acquisition.com for the businesses that come in like the minimum is a million in ebitda and around that point is when they really just need Opera they need tech operations and so we bring somebody in to help with that so I'm just thinking for you I'm like you should just I know that's usually when they need it so I'm assuming maybe at that point they don't quite realize it themselves that's why I say three to five is the floor all right cool thank you good luck Steve how's it going it's to ask questions of course so my question was do you have any advice on how to determine when it's time to make the leap and go all in on an idea um part of me says to stay put because the economy is about to blow up and that should just keep side hustling and then there's another part of me that says I should take the leap because great businesses are built during periods of economic turmoil so and just for background I have a W-2 and then I'm a subcontractor on the side um yeah and so I'm trying to launch my own business and so I can't keep doing both I'm gonna have to pick so I'm just trying to get clarity if you make equivalent money from your side hustle that you do from your job I could if I if I went full time I could make make it I can match my W-2 money or actually exceed it because there's no cap on it yeah okay so what do you think the upside is to keeping your job and not going all in on your side hustle you know the safety the security I can retire in seven years and get a annuity payment for the rest of my life um or I could go out and earn you know seven figures which would also pay me for the rest of my life so we were sticking on the benefits of sticking with the job so okay what would be the benefits to going all in on the side hustle I could be location independent I could be time independent um I'd own my own time uh I could uh pour into my business that had more time to pour into my business okay those are all about which do you enjoy more I think I enjoy my business the concept of my business which is to do training and facilitations right my side hustle to do investigations so I think I would enjoy the side hustle plus being able to explore training and coaching so do you enjoy your business you're like your side hustle as it stands right now or you said the concept no I don't enjoy it it's it's something that I do with extra time that I have to to be able to take trips or invest in the stock market or fund my my business basically I would be viewing I would be using my side hustle to fund the business oh I see so you would use your side hustle to build the business the side hustle is not going to turn into the business no no the business is an evolution from the side hustle is investigations but the the business part of it is training and coaching on the types of things I would be investigating to prevent I'm an eeo person so I do discrimination harassment retaliation so I want to move more to the prevention side and training people and then coaching Executives if they need remediation so how much of a risk do you think it actually is to do the side hustle more so that you could quit the job to pursue the business low moderate High probably low this it's not like the it's not like it's not like investigations are going to disappear tomorrow right even if the economy gets worse there'll be more of them um there's another question okay which is if you went all in on the side hustle which it sounds honestly like I mean like a like like you have a lower risk than most people I talk to about this um just being real like you do but it's your appetite for risk is what's most important because like if you're gonna get in there and then you're gonna freak the [ __ ] out then like you're not going to be good to build something so I think you have to know that about yourself that's the first thing Gina is like if you let go of the job and you go in on the side hustle and that's what you're focused on are you gonna be able to like keep yourself straight when it is going to be scary at first that's that's the first thing I'd be considering um and then the second thing that I would think about is really with the side hustle like it sounds like you have a good support network and all this stuff um you know maybe you build up the side hustle before you start working on a business so that you get like a little more of a cushion before you start like that's a lot of change at once so it'd be like you were kind of putting in like one step where it's like quit the job side hustle business I'd be like quit the job full-time side hustle build up the cash start the business oh okay yeah okay I didn't think about that yeah because I could just go hard super hard like double my income yeah what I worry about is the split attention between like I just quit my job I'm now gonna keep doing my side Hustle but I'm also going to start a bit like it's just a lot I would just like give yourself the grace to kind of do those steps and like worst case scenario what you get a job again yes I mean no I I think all of the jobs will disappear as soon as I quit mine and I'll no one will ever hire me listen I can't guarantee you anything but you seem fantastic so I I find it hard to flee people usually like to hire people that are you know Pleasant and nice oh thank you thank you so much yeah you're welcome uh think on that though it's your appetite for risk it sounds like you've identified it's low risk now it's just a question of the logistics of what would that look like and maybe just slow down your timeline a little bit to give yourself time to acclimate thank you that's awesome I'll do that all right have a good one Gina all right guys I'm like two minutes late to a meeting I appreciate all of you um let me know in the comments what you think uh what can we do differently next time any feedback you have and I appreciate all the attention from all of you over the last hour

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