About

Okay, my friend, it's happening. My business is struggling so bad that I am totally making a massive pivot. Huge pivot, and I'm going to tell you all about that in today's episode and help you discover if maybe you should pivot to. [00:00:18] [00:00:18] [00:00:33] So yesterday I spent a good deal of time journaling out how I wanted to come through this really difficult time in my business when it was clearly not going to be making it. I'm losing income. My members are canceling because they're, they don't have any money to pay for the membership, and my sales have slowed to a complete stop. [00:00:55] And so I don't have much money coming in. my income is down a ton, and I know I'm not the only one for whom that's happening. [00:01:03] But I knew I needed to take some time to really examine what that meant. And there's kind of two ways you can approach this. Like one, you can think about all the costs that you can cut and you can think about how you can pull back. And I talked to my bank and I talked to them about all the different options we had there. [00:01:19] And there's always the option of taking on debts. And. All this stuff that I just, I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it, and I will, and I have in the past, but I just really hate focusing on the reduction airy stuff because it feels. Hopeless. There's only so much you can cut. I prefer to focus on abundance on on growth, and what can I do to make more money in a time where I have an online business, I have a lot of skills and just because my photography business is not working right now. What I'm doing in the photography industry isn't working right now because that industry has been chopped off at its knees. I mean, it is not doing well. It's not my fault. Doesn't mean that I can't make something work in a different area, in a different niche. [00:02:09] And so as I was thinking about how I wanted to move forward to read this, I realized that I wanted to move away from thinking about all the things that I was going to lose and all of the things that could happen if money stopped coming in and think about how I could bring in additional income instead. [00:02:27] Now. I didn't want to completely give up my business altogether because I genuinely believe that when this is done and people can get out there and start doing photography again, that there's going to be more online entrepreneurs and influencers than ever. And so personal brand photography is going to flourish. [00:02:43] Like I think after this, it's going to be amazing. It's kind of like when winter comes and everything dies and you know, it's all, it's not debt, it's dormant. All the leaves fall off. The snow covers everything and. The life just feels God. It is. It's a really hard, dark black and white kind of season, but then the snow melts off eventually. [00:03:07] I wish it would melt off here sooner and the the leaves start to grow again. The grass starts to grow. Grit again. In fact, I already have seen some Moss peeking through the snow on a few rocks and it just brings me life. It makes me so happy. I'm super obsessed with Moss. But life is going to come back through this, and in just a few months, everything's going to explode with growth and it's just going to be a totally different transformed environment. [00:03:35] And I feel like that's what's happening right now within the personal brand photography industry, is that everybody's at home. Nobody can do photography right now, and we're just sitting dormant and all the stuff that we've lost and all of the things that have fallen apart. Are being covered by snow and they're laying on the ground and they're going to decompose and that through this challenging long, silent time that feels really dead and depressing and difficult. [00:04:04]There's going to be beautiful growth that happens. Like all those things that go down in the ground and decompose are going to be the exact elements and fertilizer that has been needed to fuel this new beautiful growth that's coming. And so I don't want to give my business up completely because I know that once things turn around. [00:04:25] Everything is going to be so much easier. Like I think this is just going to take off like nuts. So I don't want to completely close my business. I have a friend who's doing that. She's literally shutting the doors to her business in about a week. And , she's happy about it, which is great, but it's scary and I don't want to do that. [00:04:43] I don't want to completely give it up. But. I need to find something else to bring in income right now. So as I was thinking about what I wanted to do during this time, I started thinking about all the different things I could do. So one, I could do some freelancing. So I'm a really great copywriter. I'm phenomenal at community management. [00:05:04] And I thought about offering to work for whoever might need. Even I had a friend, even I had a friend, I had a friend even offer to hire me as a community manager during this time because they're looking for help on that. And. I thought about it and it just didn't sit right. Not because I don't want to work for my friend. [00:05:21] She would have been phenomenal to work for, but because doing freelance work right now for me, felt like it would kill all the momentum that I'd been building in my business and in my personal brand because I wouldn't have the same amount of time. To podcast to work on my own business, you know, whatever it is. [00:05:38] And one of the things I want to pivot into is obviously growing my personal brand and I really want to help people create real movements, not just audiences. And I really want to help people understand how to activate their communities and grow them. Cause that's one of my super powers. I am so good at connecting with people and helping people connect with each other and building that engagement. [00:06:03]Within a business, I can get people to engage like crazy. , so this morning I was watching a Facebook live from Stu McLaren and he happened to bring me up as an example for something, and I was chattering away in the comments and I kind of offhandedly had mentioned that I'm thinking about doing something within the community space and helping people really grow thriving communities or pivoting in some way during this time until I'm able to come back to this. [00:06:31] And my lovely friend Lisa Kay, she was there and she chimed in and she's like, yeah. I am your ideal client. I would love that. I would definitely want to be a part of that if you want. I'd be happy to hop on a call with you and talk through what it is that I would love to learn and all my issues, and basically let me pick her brain so that I could figure out exactly what my offer could be. [00:06:55]. So we jumped on a video chat right then and there, and we ended up spending two hours talking back and forth about what she needed in her business, how I could help, what would make this a win for her. [00:07:09] What kind of messaging resonated with her most? what my framework might look like, what the format might look like, all of it. Like it was the best two hours I have spent in my business in a long time because I learned so much information in such a short amount of time. That was such a gift to me, Lisa, and if you're listening to this. [00:07:31] Thank you. Thank you, thank you. I know it was a win win because you learned some stuff too, but if you guys can talk to the people you want to serve and allow them to speak to you about what they're struggling with, what they really want. learn their language for what they say. Cause I was thinking about building movements and she's like, Oh, that's heavy. [00:07:52] I don't want all the social justice stuff behind it. And I'm like, Oh yeah, there's kind of this idea of what a movement is. And it's different from what I consider a movement to be like. It can be both. And it was like, Oh, using the word movement is not the best messaging for this. And so we talked through some of that and it was so, so helpful. [00:08:14] And I just. Use that time with her to really help craft my offer. I even said like, which of these would appeal to you more like building an active community or learning how to engage people in your business? Because so much of what we offer isn't like the actual content, because the content would be the same. [00:08:33] Either way. It's figuring out what language the people who really need us would use and resonate with so that they want to buy what we have. And so I'm probably going to do a Facebook group for, I don't know how many weeks. I'm going to guess that it's going to be six weeks, maybe it'll be eight weeks. [00:08:52] I'm going to do it totally beta style, and we're going to cocreate it. I'm going to bring people in. I'm going to do it exactly like I launched by personal brand photography course. It's going to be totally off the cuff in that I'm going to do it live. I'm going to have a huge. Big picture like topics, but I'm not going to know exactly what lessons I'm going to do from day to day because in part, that's going to depend on the questions that people are asking and what they really need to know. [00:09:19] Because what I know is that when we are really good at something, we take it for granted and we forget what people don't know. Like for us it's like, Oh yeah, well that's obvious. Of course we do this, or for me it's like, Oh yeah, well, when you start a group. At the beginning you have to drive that engagement, but at some point, , things get easier and other people start to own the group and feel ownership towards it and engage with it too. [00:09:43] And then more and more people begin to comment and build that up, and then you can step back a little bit. You still leave, but you don't have to be the main person leading all the stuff. And then as more and more people adopt that. You go into this phase of them inviting their friends, because now they own the group, they feel a sense of ownership towards it, and they're super engaged and they think it's awesome. [00:10:05] And so now they naturally want to bring their friends in even without you asking them to, and you go through this period of really fast, big growth. And then you come to a point where. There's old people who are kind of upset that it isn't as intimate as it used to be and that there are all these brand new people coming in asking the same question over and over and over again instead of searching, you know what I'm talking about. [00:10:30] Right. And. It gets so big that it's almost too big and you kind of get this divide. It's not the same. The old people are upset. The new people aren't really getting engaged in the culture fast enough. And then how you handle that can determine whether the group totally falls apart and becomes disengaged or if it actually morphs into something better that can grow further. [00:10:53] Well, this is stuff I like take for granted. I don't even think about it anymore cause I've just know it like I've seen it happen with several groups. I've learned that and she's like, Oh my gosh, that's gold. And if you forget, if you don't talk to people. And so I was really excited about the idea. Of doing this together and co-creating this course around helping people get engagement and build communities of people who actually show up and communicate. [00:11:18] Because from memberships, if you can get people to stay engaged in a community and to actually do the work that you're doing and if they do it, they're going to get results. If they connect with people there, they're going to be less likely to leave. It's a beautiful retention strategy. [00:11:33]But also if you have a free group, there's ways to do it so that those people actually become buyers and aren't just freeloaders, are just there to pitch their own stuff. And for most people, I know they're afraid to do a free group because it's a burden to them [00:11:47] And they don't know what to put in a free group versus what to put in a paid group so that they're paid. Members don't feel like they're missing out. And like, there's all this stuff that I've thought about and that I've, that I've done, and that works really well for me and my business. And it's not just Facebook groups, like I know how to engage email lists and social media accounts, and it's just what I do naturally. [00:12:08] And the more engaged your people are with you and your business, the more money you're gonna make. [00:12:12] I just get really excited about the idea of helping people, like you create communities and places where people go first to spend their time during the day. So many people are online right now sitting at home during this Corona virus stuff. Where are they spending their time? I want them to be spending time in your groups, on your platforms, on your social media accounts, engaging there because when you have their attention, you're going to grow. [00:12:41] You just are. The more you can do that, the better. And so many people get a ton of engagement and a ton of activity around a launch. And then it just kind of Peters out and they don't know how to keep it going. They don't even know how to do conversations with them or build that engagement or get people to connect or any of that stuff. [00:12:56] So that's what I want to do. Like we talked about this for two hours, you can probably hear how excited it makes me because it's totally my jam. Like I love this so much. So she really helped me craft my offer. She helped me realize that I actually want to work with entrepreneurs who already have a business and a product so that they can accelerate that. [00:13:14] Like she's been doing this a long time. She's got a podcast, she's got the email, she's got a book, she's got a product, she's got the stuff. She doesn't need to learn how to build an email list. There's plenty of people out there teaching that. She needs to learn how to engage those people in a deeper way. [00:13:30] And make them most of the assets that she's already created so that she can start really leveling up. She's like, I've done all this stuff, but I'm just not making that progress. And I'm like, I can help with this. I know how to do this stuff. And engagement is the key, not just in a group, not just in a community, but in your entire business. [00:13:50] , I love this stuff. I love. This stuff. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm absolutely going to beta launch this course as soon as I can possibly get it all together and I move fast. The only thing that's going to slow me down is I am determined to podcast through this all so that if you are sitting there and you're thinking that maybe you need to make a big pivot, maybe you're a photographer. [00:14:13] And you're like, you know what, I love photography, but I need to be doing something else right now. Maybe you want to do some graphic design teaching or teach people how to use their images, whatever it is. Maybe you have an idea for a course that you want to sell and you just don't know how to do it. [00:14:28] How do you even launch that? Maybe you like to knit or quilt like I do. I love to quilt and maybe you want to do some quilting tutorials or something and you want to put something out there. Bring a community along to do it with you, [00:14:41] notice me. The way I do things is in community. It's what I do. So I create courses in community. None of it is done. I mean, I don't even have the big outline of any of it yet, but it's coming. It'll come, and I'm going to be very upfront about that. You can actually go back to some of my earliest episodes here on the podcast. [00:15:01] [00:15:01] If you go back to episode 10 from season one of the podcast, you'll actually hear exactly how I launched my personal brand photography course as a beta launch. And then episode 11 is going to tell you why you should beta launch as well. Why this idea of selling something before you've ever created it is actually way better than creating it first and then hoping that it's going to sell. [00:15:27] It's a really great. Set of episodes. So go listen to those if you haven't, but I'm literally going to walk you through this real time for free right here on this podcast, even though I know I could probably sell this as well, because I want you to see how it works, and I want you to hear my thought processes. [00:15:45] I'm going through it, and ideally I want you to join the course with me and learn how to continue engaging this audience. Once you've. Launched your own thing because the more you can get that beta group involved and engaged, the more likely they're going to be to actually do what you're teaching them to do and get results, which means that you'll then have awesome stories and testimonials that you can use to promote it when you do it again in the future. [00:16:09]That is like the best part of having a beta group. So I want to basically show you what I'm doing. I want to bring you along so you can see how I'm doing it inside this group, and I'm going to give you all the systems and processes and things that I use to do it. It's going to be so much fun. I'm so excited. [00:16:26] I can't even sell it to you right now because I've got nothing to send you to. I've got literally nothing to send you to. So my goal, I'll share a couple of little high level things that I'm thinking of right now is to use this in part honestly, because I know there's a ton of people out there who are wanting to launch something online cause they got all this time they're sitting at home, some of them have lost their jobs. [00:16:48] Some of them are really trying to figure out, you know, how can they get this course out into the world and make some extra money online and they could use this to do that. They can follow the formula. It's, I'm really excited about that. But also , I'll probably run a few Facebook ads, really low dollar, maybe Instagram ads as well. [00:17:07]To the podcast to help build some audience. I don't really have much of an audience here, like I said, but right now, because everyone's online and because people are struggling, the cost of Facebook and Instagram ads is way low and sending people to something that they just get to consume and listen to you without an opt in or without selling something is like mega cheap. [00:17:28] And so I will take a little bit of money. I don't have a ton extra to spend, but I do believe that. , even , a couple hundred dollars, which I could probably even spend less than that, but using that to send people to this podcast to listen is probably a really good use of my money because I'm going to sell this for four 99 and so. Even if I just spend $499 on ads, I feel pretty confident that I'm at least going to get one extra sale because of this. So I'm definitely willing to spend at least that much. That's probably going to be my budget. [00:18:00] We'll see. Who knows? I can always turn it off if it's not converting, but I'm thinking that this would be a great thing to send people to because they have time to listen and they might find it really helpful. I'm also probably going to talk to some of my friends and cash in a few of my networking chips and the hopes that they will mention it to their audiences because there's a lot of people I know who have the type of person who would find this really helpful. [00:18:24]And. I really believe that this can compliment a lot of what's already out there without directly competing with it, and so it's a really beautiful way to hopefully, get a few people to send me some of their audience so I can serve them well as well. [00:18:38]we're going to see how it goes. I'll keep you updated on how everything is happening. I'm going to walk you through the entire thing right now. It is literally just an idea. All I've done is spent that time with Lisa earlier today. Thanks again, Lisa. Really picking her brain and talking through it, and I'm so thankful she offered to do that and she, it just helped me bring so much clarity. [00:18:57] I have 13 pages of notes, and so I'm going to go back. I'm going to review those notes and really use that to help write up my offer and shape. What I'm going to you like what I'm going to say to get people into this, cause I'll probably do a few Facebook posts and I'll probably do a Facebook live or two and I'm going to need a name for this thing. [00:19:13] I kind of suck at naming things, but I'll hit up some of my friends who are good at naming them. summer and Levi, I'm looking at you. You're going to get hit up for help with naming, but I love calling my friends out on my podcast anyways. I'm excited to share it with you. We'll see how quickly I can get it out. [00:19:29] Like it's really a race to do this. ideally, I will have this out the door in the next few days and we'll start a week from Monday. So like a week and a half from now, I'd actually be starting creating content with people. Not sure if that's realistic or not, but that's what I'm going to push for. [00:19:44] So zero audience, zero outline or anything. It's just the stuff I got to extract from my head and set up. And no assets created in a brand new niche. And if I can beta launch a new course, hopefully make some money doing it. I know you can too. Now, I might not make any money doing it, but I feel confident that I absolutely will get at least a handful of people, and honestly, I don't need a ton. [00:20:07] I'd love a ton. When I did my personal brand photography course, I got a 167 people. The first time around. That would be a mazing. But even if I don't get a ton, even having a few people would just be fantastic for helping with cashflow right now, but also for helping me to hone this so that I can teach it again in the future. [00:20:28] So that's what I'm looking at. that's where I'm at. If you're wanting to make a big pivot, come along with the journey. If you're finding this interesting and helpful, would really love it if you would share it with a friend who might also need it. Leave a great review for us, and if you haven't yet, definitely subscribe. [00:20:43] I'm going to be doing a lot of podcasting over the next few days. I can already feel it. I'm excited to share it with you and I definitely want to take you along for the ride, so thanks so much. I will see you in the next episode.