THE GOAL ACHIEVEMENT PODCAST
WITH MATT EAST
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Client Conversation - Michael Vargas on His Success on Upwork, Scaling a Digital Marketing Agency, and Much More
The Goal Achievement Podcast, hosted by Productivity Expert Matt East, is all about helping you find clarity, design a plan, and most importantly achieve your goals.
During today’s episode, Matt interviews Michael Vargas, one of his clients. Michael Is a Digital Marketing Expert and entrepreneur. He is the founder of a digital marketing agency, Forward Growth Media. Learn how Michael has been successful in building his business on Upwork, how he’s scaled his business, and much more!
Michael’s company Forward Growth Media: http://forward-growth-media.com/
Follow Michael on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_michaelvargas_/
Work with Michael on Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/fl/michaelvargas13
Learn more at www.Matt-East.com
Listen to Matt’s book, The Purposeful Planning Method:
Client Conversation - Michael Vargas on His Success on Upwork, Scaling a Digital Marketing Agency, and Much More
Podcast Transcription
Hey, guys, what's up? Welcome to the Goal Achievement podcast.
I hope everybody's doing really well out there, I hope everybody had a really good week. I'm recording this as the last thing I'm doing on a Friday, and it's a really fun episode, I get to have a client for the first time on the podcast, so completely randomly a client of mine, Michael Vargas.
He's an amazing guy, he owns a digital marketing agency and he's been really successful on Upwork and that's kind of why when he said, hey, man, I'd love to come on, I said I jumped on it because I know a lot of people I talked to are thinking of going out to work on a site like Upwork, so I thought it might be really beneficial.
So that is why I'm having Michael Vargas on, this is the first-ever client conversation and I think it's really good, Michael is like such a thoughtful guy, you guys are going to love him, he's an amazing, amazing guy, I've worked with him for a long time. I talk a lot about my digital coaching on here, Michael started as a digital coaching client and then has kind of moved into a package where we talk, Michael and I talk actually every Monday mostly about his business and about his goals and what he's wanting to achieve with his business.
And literally like this week, later in the week, we recorded this earlier in the week, later in the week, he had a huge success with his business and has been able to hit some amazing, amazing, amazing financial targets that he has kind of been aiming for... for a long time. So it's been so much fun to work with him, You guys are going to pick up that he's a really sweet guy, a really amazing guy, and he's young and he is hungry and he is just amazing, it's just amazing that he's been able to achieve what he's been able to do.
So I hope you guys love this interview and love Michael and I will link to some of his social profiles and his business in the show notes. So if anybody wants to reach out to him and hit him up to say good job, I'm sure he was a little nervous jumping on a podcast for the first time. But he did great and here it is. Here's my interview with Michael Vargas, I hope you guys enjoy and have a great weekend.
Matt Welcome to the goal achievement podcast, Michael. How are you?
Michael I'm doing awesome, Matt. How are you?
Matt Man, I'm so... I'm doing wonderful, thank you so much for joining the podcast, I'm so excited to have you on. This is the first time, you know, with my clients, everything is so confidential and you asked me, said Matt, I wouldn't mind being on the podcast, are you ever looking... Would you ever consider having an actual client on?
And I jumped on it because I guess I just want to start the interview off by acknowledging you, because we've worked together for quite a while now, and we'll definitely talk about your digital agency for growth media. But I just wanted to acknowledge you for the development of both your business, but also your personal growth, and it's just been so much fun watching that and being a very small part of it. But being able to somewhat participate in that has been amazing for me, and I just wanted to start off by acknowledging you, so I think you're amazing and... and thanks for... thanks for coming on the podcast.
Michael Yeah, I really appreciate that Matt it's even crazy looking back at when we started considering how many things have changed, and then now it's, it's really crazy what we've been able to accomplish together.
Matt Yeah it's been amazing, it's you, it's... It's... It's a very small part of me, it's… it's all you. It's you taking action and having clarity about what you want to do and then acting on it and I'm not going to take any credit for that, it's all you.
But I... I'm breaking this interview into two areas. We want to talk about your business, I'm really interested in that, and I know there are so many listeners of this podcast that are very into social media and they would love to start a social media digital agency of their own, so I'm going to dig in and ask you some kind of nitty-gritty questions around that.
And then we'll get into kind of your personal growth, and that's going to be the plan of attack. Are you cool with that?
Michael Yeah sounds good.
Matt OK, and jump in any time if you have any questions for me or... or anything. So going back a few years, I'm just interested. And some of these questions are some of these answers will be new to me. I don't know if I've ever asked you this, but going back a few years…
What drove you to start a digital marketing agency of your own?
Michael Yeah, of course, I'll definitely touch on that, I think for me, the journey actually starts a bit before that because I guess just a brief overview, mainly things that drove me in life were just massive pain, so just big experiences I had in my life that caused me to have a lot of pain that kind of forced me to start looking for answers in my life, to really see how I could become the best version of myself because I wasn't really happy with the person that I was a few years ago.
And this journey started for me around when I was 15 and 16, so to... a few businesses I got into actually before even starting my agency and I had like small results nothing too crazy was I actually did a little bit of Amazon to eBay dropship things, so I took a course in that when I was like 16 and got started with that. From there I actually also started a little bit of a clothing brand with a friend and we ended up kind of getting some samples and doing some posts on social media, it was funny because this girl said that I needed it there to make that successful with social media marketing, which I didn't have.
So it's kind of funny how that comes full circle now and I do work with local businesses as well as e-commerce businesses and some businesses, maybe even a little bit similar to the one that I tried to start when I was 5 years ago when I was 16. And then after that, that's what I would say when I got into the whole digital marketing as my main social media marketing and e-commerce space I actually started an agency at the same time starting an e-commerce drop shipping swimwear store with a friend, and ended up realizing that I saw more potential at the agency so I ended up dropping that venture.
Throughout this time as well I had kind of some various hustles like I was doing sales for a bit I actually did Door to door solar sales for a little bit. OK, so it was kind of I guess that's the whole back story and a lot of things that went into skills that I developed before actually starting my agency. But at this point, I started my agency in April of 2017 and what drove me at that point was again, I saw the opportunity to invest in a course around social media marketing agency, the model kind of made sense that a lot of local, small, medium-sized businesses weren't really properly handling their social media and that someone like me who was younger would have actually an authority in that space because it's something that I grew up with, essentially.
So the whole kind of model of it made sense and then ended up investing into a thousand-dollar course and then within the space of a few days, actually ended up going out and just kind of going door to door and talking to business owners and this is actually before I had the door to door sales job doing solar for a little bit, and then talking to business owners and I remember the first one I ever spoke to was a burger restaurant with a few locations and we ended up walking in and was it just ask for the owner? And we spoke to him a little bit about social media and he gave us his card and we ended up following up with him but nothing really happened there.
But at that point, we also were asking people or I was asking people to see if the concept made sense and you know I wanted to start this business where I was doing social media marketing for local businesses and a lot of business owners thought it was a great idea so I feel like that gave me a bit of confidence going into it.
But I would say overall, what pushed me to start it was just kind of a relentless willingness to really I just wanted to succeed and I wasn't really willing to let anything get in the way, I just want to become the best version of myself and I feel like that manifested in a few areas of my life and then one of the big ones being business and starting my own business. And at the time, this opportunity made sense to me I really loved social media and that's kind of that I had that the concept validated by business owners in my area and that's kind of what... what launched it off for me I would say.
Matt That's awesome. So how, how old are you now?
Michael Yeah, I'm 21 I'm about to turn 22 actually next month, so.
Matt That's amazing, you are by far my youngest client, but that is it's amazing that you, I mean you were really entrepreneurial driven if you were getting out there like 15 and 16, and yeah man it's... it's amazing.
So what advice would you give to someone who might be looking to start an agency of their own?
Michael Yeah, I mean, there's a few things I would say, I think your personal development is just as important as the business skills that say you'll learn meaning do you have the right habits in place, which I know is something that Matt focuses on, 'cause I think part of your success in business will be tied to the person that you are in your personal development, so but in terms of that, I mean, I think the few things I would say that are really important if you want to start an agency, is you need to be able to sell these even if you have the best service in the world and you can really help business owners if you can't convey that to them, then the skill set is almost useless, unfortunately.
So I'd say sales is really important.
I would also say find a mentor, someone who's achieved the results that you want in social media marketing, I know that I did take some courses and stuff like that, but things also really started to change for me when I started investing in one on one mentorship, it's like the mentorship I have with Matt, so I think the second you can do that, I would recommend that with someone who's credible and has the results you want.
So it's one sales, two get a mentor, and then three, I would say focus on going for warmer leads.
So we'll touch on this, I'm sure, a little bit later on in the interview, but I would say before you start cold calling and cold outreaching to businesses, start looking on places where people are actively searching for social media help because it'll be much easier for you to work with them because instead of convincing them why they need to do social media, they're already looking for that actively, so you just need to convince them to go with you.
I think it's much easier close and it's a little bit easier, especially when you're a beginner you don't have as much sales experience, so I think places to do that are like Upwork, Linked In, job recruitment sites like Indeed, I think those are good places for you to start. So I would say those three things definitely would have fast-tracked my learning curve by at least one year if I started doing those things sooner.
Matt Sure, and you mentioned sales is a skill that's necessary.
Do you feel like your salesmanship has developed over time as you've kind of been in this game?
Michael Yeah, I would say so I mean, also the mindset I have around sales is very different because now I mean, a lot of people have, I think, a lot of limiting beliefs around sales and pushy salesmen and sleazy and stuff like that. But I think at this point and kind of always throughout it, just a matter of figuring out what the client is looking for and then offering them a solution I mean, that's simply what it comes down to, just connecting them with a solution that you can offer, there's no that there's no hard sale that's really needed.
The way I look at it is we're actually helping the businesses by helping them with their social media marketing, get new leads, get new customers, so there's no hard sell that's needed, if they're not a good fit, they're not a good fit, and that's totally fine.
So I think also one thing I've learned by learning sales as well as it's allowed me to have more confidence in social situations as well and just connecting with other people and I think that's something I value a lot, probably even more than the sales and the amount of money you can generate, just the confidence that I've developed in my ability to connect with people on a different level that's something I would say is the number one thing I've gotten from it as well.
Matt Sure, sure and I might get off course here, so bring me back if I am, but what...
What your agency is really good at from just our conversations that we have every week that I've picked up on is really good at Facebook, advertising seems to be a strength and then also just creating content in general and being able to help distribute that content through various social channels. Is that right or am I missing something?
Michael Yeah, those are the two main services for the first two years when I, so I mean to go back a little bit at first I really wanted to offer Facebook ads, but I wasn't really able to convey the value to business owners and then properly get results back when I started like three years ago, from there I transitioned to only doing the content side because it was more manageable and was something that I knew how to do confidently, so I doubled down on that for a while, and then once I got confident that I realized there was a lot of value in businesses looking for leads and new customers through Facebook and paid advertising so then I added in that service.
So essentially now the stage right is taking time to build up to this. Those are the two verticals, basically, the content management, which is social media management across the different platforms, whether that's Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, you can do the graphic design, the caption writing, setting up the hashtags, scheduling out all of the content and then actually replying to the comments and messages, so it's basically an A to Z 100 percent automated social media management service. The other service is Facebook and Instagram advertising where will leverage Facebook and Instagram's paid advertising platforms to acquire new leads and new customers for businesses, so those the two different services that we're offering currently.
Matt Sure and how do you think...
What would you use to determine if somebody wants to become an agency owner like yourself if it makes sense? You mentioned a few platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, or LinkedIn. Like how do you how would you guide somebody to either getting established on a platform like that or making the decision to not get established? Do would you guide them one way or another?
Michael Sure. I think Upwork is the most popular one at the moment, so I'd probably go there instead of Fiverr, Fiverr can be good if you're looking for some lower ticket stuff, maybe getting a few posts created or some graphics maybe as a starter level, I personally never gotten results on Fiverr, but I think Upwork is definitely one to focus on and what I would say is the most important thing is reviews.
And I think it makes sense for all aspiring agency owners to be on these platforms just because, again, you'll be able to connect with business owners who are actively looking for your services and I think it makes more sense to start there and start reaching out to those people before you just start cold calling people that might have zero interest in social media. And of course, if you see value in it for their business and you can convey that to them, that's great, but I personally think it makes more sense to go to someone who is actively searching before you're going to go to someone that isn't.
So I think it makes sense for everyone to be there and I think the number one thing that will help you get started there is your reviews, so if you and you can leverage maybe people in your existing network or do some jobs on there for lower prices than your usual adjustability views, that will help you and help you make a lot more money in the long run than if you just start from scratch. And again, I didn't necessarily have those things to leverage when I started and I was able to make it work but looking back, I think it's easier if you have some case studies and some work to leverage on those platforms to start acquiring new clients.
Matt And I know you're using a lot of business through Upwork, I mean, it's not your only way that you're winning business I know you do direct work, too, but your Upwork is very established and you're an established service provider on there. Is there anything besides kind of subsidizing your price early on to kind of win deals, to get reviews?
Is there anything else you'd give as advice to somebody that's trying to get going on Upwork and trying to win their first deal or second deal or, you know, anything they can do besides lowering the price?
Michael Of course I like that question a lot, Matt.
So I think another thing to do is go more of a... more of a customized approach, so I think a lot of people, when they get more established, they have more leads and they don't necessarily maybe have the time to really engage with the potential clients as much as you do and when you're in the beginning, let's say you don't have clients and you have less leads so I would really go out of your way to make it a personalized experience.
One way you can do that is including video so maybe let's say they have their website and the job posting on their social media links, you can actually do a screen recorded video, a little Google Chrome extension I like for that is called Boom and you can just send them a quick message saying, hey, I saw your job posting maybe these are three things I would change about your social media presence if you'd like to learn more about what I can do to help you, let's book in the call, just reply to this message and I will send you over my calendar link and we can have a chat, just something basic like that that will show the business owner that you're a lot more interested, let's say than a lot of other candidates who just have written proposals.
Matt Right.
Michael And I think from there it'll help you stand out because I know that for a fact 95 to 99 percent of people aren't willing to actually get on video and do that so I would recommend that, I'd recommend that for sure. And again, another thing I want to say to you is it's a numbers game.
In the beginning, when you have less experience and less leverage, you might need to reach out to more people than let's reach out to more businesses than, let's say, someone like me who has more experience to start working with a client. But over time, as you get more used to the approach, as you get more confident, as you have more case studies, you'll need to reach out to less and less people to close clients. So it only gets easier, the hardest one is the first one, and then, you know, as you move on, it only gets easier, so I think that's the words of encouragement I would give as well.
Matt So would you suggest like I guess that's a better question than I was going to ask. So if you, I mean, if you're getting started early on, I'm like Upwork and you don't have any clients, you're saying, hey, the one thing you have is time, so really nurture and baby along and really, you know, try to customize that first experience or the first few clients. There's no reason because you're not, you're not swamped with work at that time you can dedicate your time to winning business.
Michael 100 percent yeah, and you can go above and beyond for these clients, really understand their needs, give them a personalized approach that they're not getting from other places, and then eventually they'll come into contact with someone who appreciates that. Then also the thing is your mindset will get changed because once you start working with a client, you get them resolved and you see that they're happy, you're going to be more confident what you have to offer and you're going to go on this upward spiral and this upward snowball were you're going to build momentum, which I think we both know how important momentum is in business and in life in general.
So those are the two main things. I would say, though. Do whatever you can to leverage your views and testimonials on these platforms, because in general, all these platforms especially, it's very helpful, and then go out of your way to give a customized experience and really go above and beyond for the client to show them why they should hire you instead of someone who does have results and does have case studies and things like that that they can leverage.
Matt I love that. So what's the best part, in your opinion, of owning a business and owning your own agency?
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of the cliche stuff that people talk about when it comes to entrepreneurship, I mean, it's... It's nice to have that freedom and to be able to kind of work on your own schedule, on your own terms, which I think at one point, as we discussed, can kind of flip around and sometimes be a stressful thing. But I think in general, it's... it's really nice to have that freedom and, you know, you can make decisions if you want to take on a client you can, if you want to work more to try to get new clients or to get your existing clients better results or put a system in place, you have that control and I think I really like that.
If I don't want to take a client on, which happens from time to time as well, I don't have to, right? There's no one forcing me to do that, I don't have to work with someone I don't want to work with. But I think the freedom definitely the control aspect I mean, and also like just someone like me, like I really enjoy growth and I think when you're in entrepreneurship, at the end of the day, you're the one on top. It all comes down to you, so all of the growth is dependent on me in a way and also all of the downsides can essentially be linked to my fault as well.
Whether I hire the wrong person or structure, deal wrong, or whatever it is, I'm just giving out examples that's on me too so I think it also allows me to take one hundred percent accountability and the other thing too is I've realized your business will often reflect will be a mirror of your life. So if there's something you struggle within a different area, that'll... That'll likely over... that'll likely translate into a problem that you have in your business, so I think it also gives me like self-awareness to see where I might be coming up short in other areas of my life as well, and stop me if you think that doesn't make sense now, you think I'd be more clear in that, but I think the main thing I've gotten
Matt No it makes complete sense, let me ask you this. So I know you see people like you're so involved in this community, you see people, they're like, I'm going to start an agency or I'm going to get on up work and try to win some jobs and I know occasionally I'm sure you're like rolling your eyes and you're like, you're not going to succeed.
What's the biggest mistake you see people making that you can, like, foresee that it's going to be... It's not going to work out for them.
Michael I like that question a lot too, I would probably say mindset and habits, definitely, because people will come into it with the wrong expectations they'll see someone that has two years of experience closing all these clients and doing all this big stuff, and they might try to model that success and start building out the wrong systems.
This assumes that you need a year or two and not a week too just because they think that they're doing a good thing by modeling success, which is a great thing to do. But you have to also model success at different stages. I think that's another thing I used to struggle with. If you're trying to implement a system into your business that you realistically don't need unless you have 20 clients, when you have one client, you're doing the wrong thing at the wrong time.
So I think that's why the mentorship and having that guidance is important at the right stages. But that's the other main thing, is having the wrong expectations people will go into it and think they're going to charge their first client a whole bunch of money and just because they see people that have three years of experience doing that, and that's going to be the perfect client. But I think you have to understand that there will be a journey along the way where you can charge more for your clients, you can get them better results as you learn, as you build your team, and it will become more of a streamlined thing.
But in the beginning, it's almost kind of just figuring out what's going to work for you, because what works for me might not necessarily work for someone else so it's a matter of doing the right things at the right time and having the right expectation.
The other thing, too, when it comes to mindset and habits, is people will, let's say, start reaching out to clients, so say I'm going to reach out to 50 clients that they might do that day, they might not get any replies because they're doing something wrong and then they want to get discouraged and give up, whereas they could say, let me build the habit of doing 10 a day and I'm not going to... I'm not going to give up until this works.
And that was kind of the mindset I have, I was like, I'm going to reach out to new clients every day, whether that's one or 15, I don't care I'm just doing it every single day, and then I'll tweak my approach as time goes on and if you have that mindset, yeah, it might take you longer than someone else. But if you're doing it consistently, you're doing it every day and you're constantly tweaking your approach, you eventually you'll get the results that you're looking for.
Matt OK, and I know we've talked a lot of bit... a lot about your... your work style that you've gone to at least this year and maybe late last year is really unique in that it's a very collaborative environment where you're like basically virtually kind of working alongside, but not with some other agency owners and other social media experts and you're kind of collaborating virtually as opposed to just like hustling at your office by yourself or by yourself.
Can you chat through, like, how that's helped you and even just the process a little bit for people to understand what you're doing?
Michael Yeah, of course, so through one of the course groups that I met actually met up with or connected with two other agency owners that do the agency full time, and we obviously all work from home and from different coworking spaces and things like that. So one thing that you can struggle with or that I've struggled with in the past when we started working together, Matt was actually having the accountability because, at the end of the day, I was only kind of accountable to myself.
So if let's say there was something I told myself I would do, but I wanted to do what I didn't do it, there was no necessary downside to that that was immediate. Obviously, I'd be sabotaging my long-term success, my long-term goals so I was like, hey, what if I put a system in place? And obviously one of the ways that this was coaching with you as well, but where I was working day by day with other agency owners, we would keep each other on like weekly goals and things like that.
So we'll actually meet up daily on Zoom for the most part and we'll... we'll go on to work sessions and then we'll kinda discuss what we're looking to do, any problems we're having in our business, and kind of just helping each other grow and I found it's a much more enjoyable way and a much more beneficial way to get work done instead of just going at it alone and making mistakes and not having any oversight or being able to collaborate with others. Does that answer the question Matt?.
Matt Yeah, yeah. How did you find those? How did you find like you're the people you wanted to collaborate with? Because that's a big deal. And like you're going to let these people into your life a little bit and you're going to be spending your energy, you know, talking and collaborating with them. How did you decide that?
Michael Yeah, so again, they were found we all connected through a mentorship like business group that we're in and it was on a live call and it was actually brought up the idea of the person hosting the call It was like, oh, you got you guys are all doing a similar thing maybe you should hop into some sort of weekly accountability group and then from there we started discussing it.
I really liked the idea and its one that I've had before, but I struggled to find the right people because that's, I think the expectation I want to set as well. The first time you perform on these groups, it might not be with the group that you're going to end up within the long run, even me now in the group I'm in, I don't know if this is an accountability group I'll be in... in three, six, nine months, I mean, things are going well now, but people change, people's goals change, you want to go in different directions.
So I've started other groups in the past, it might work for a week or two, but then people start not showing up to calls because they have something else, another commitment, or they don't do their action steps or whatever it is, and it becomes a waste of time for everyone.
This one happened organically, as in we just plan on doing weekly accountability calls, then eventually we all realize that we're all working from home and things like that and we wanted that daily accountability. So we're like, oh, would it be crazy if we did the calls every day? And then that's kind of what started happening where it's like a weekly it's like a daily ritual always happens.
At some point now some of us might have sales calls or things like that where we have to leave or show up at different times that happens like today, for example, I had a sales call at 10:00 a.m., which is when we usually start the call, so I showed up a bit late because of that and they were in there working so that definitely happens. But in general, we're basically in that call every day for at least a few hours getting some work done, so it's been really helpful.
Matt I love that. So you guys, your group is two other people?
Michael Yeah, and I think that's a good number as well because if you're with one other person and let's say they don't show or they don't, they don't slack off or they don't show it, it kind of just discourages you because you're the only one left. But if there's three if someone slacking or something like that or someone doesn't show up, they're still two other people to collaborate and push each other. So I think three is a good number, anything larger than that, it might get a bit messy and if you do with one other person, if one person doesn't show up or slacks up, then I mean, the group is kind of abolished. So I think three is the perfect number for accountability groups like that.
Matt Sure, so this is kind of like I mean, I know this is totally separate, but what's the service where you can, like, login and do work sessions for, like, fifty minutes? Do you know what that's called?
Michael Oh yeah and you recommended that to me as well, and that's one that I use for a while as well. It's called Focusmate.
Matt Yes, Focusmate is great, and it's kind of like this, but it's... it's a little more random in the people that you're meeting with. But I think that you kind of had some success with that before going into, like this model.
Michael Yeah and I still have a subscription with them, I think it's really it's like four or five dollars a month, I think it's definitely worthwhile. I haven't used it in maybe a month or two, but before that, I think I logged maybe close to two hundred sessions, I just got it to a little bit better to have the personal connection so that you always get partnered up with, like random people for the most part.
There are ways to have groups in there I don't really know too much about that, but there are also benefits to working with a random person. I kind of just liked working with the group because we can plan out our monthly 90 day goals in Focusmate you can only really focus on that one session, so I just like the ability to have the bigger vision in mind as well.
Matt OK, great. And where can people who are interested in your business learn more about... about it, like your website, or would you send them to Upwork or where would you want to direct traffic?
Michael Yeah, I would say my website and then from there, if anyone wants to have a chat, they can always book in a free discovery call, but I would just be www.forward-growth-media.com, and then that would probably be the main place. Outside of that, I mean, if anyone wants to connect with me through Instagram, my Instagram handle would just be _MichaelVargas_ so that would be my Instagram handle.
Matt Perfect and we'll all include those in the show notes guy so don't worry about that. And then so personal growth-wise, we're going to turn the conversation a little bit. So personal growth-wise, so why did you originally like you're young? I like just so you know, and the audience wouldn't know this and you wouldn't know this, like when I, I do a lot of advertising for my business and you know this with what you're doing, you can really narrow into your audience who you want to pursue even with age, you know, and I always I don't start like most of my clients are all older than I'd say 30 because most 20-year-olds know everything, so they don't want any help, they don't want a coach like they're like, you know, they know and they probably can't afford it 99 percent of them, but I don't, I don't spend any money in advertising to 20-year-olds, not because I wouldn't love working with them and I think that I could help them and... and all that. But, you know, most 20-year-olds, they have it figured out so they don't want a coach they, they got... they, they know what they're doing.
So why did you originally, like, even have the foresight to be like, I think I want to hire a coach to kind of help a little bit?
Michael Yeah, of course, so at that point in my business, I was doing OK, I did have clients and I had things rolling, but I knew that my biggest area of improvement was my personal productivity because I've gotten to a point where I would get my things done day-to-day, but I would procrastinate and waste hours and hours and hours in the day and maybe be finishing up things that should take me three hours over the course of 12 hours.
That's, I think, the main problem I came up with, I was having troubles with inconsistent wake-up times and sleep times and I mean, again, I was doing OK, but I knew that the personal habits that I had there would also reflect over into the business success I had so I was like, I don't need another tactic on how to get new clients. I don't need another Facebook ad strategy to get my existing clients better results, I need to really just take control of my personal life and my personal habits and my routines, so that's really where that started.
I just realized also the importance of having the external accountability, because, again, at that point I was self-employed and that's how to have anyone holding me accountable aside for myself? which is great, but I think also you want to put as many systems in place in your life as you can so that the things, the direction you want to go in, in life, and the things you want to see happen or kind of just guaranteed, whereas just relying on your own personal motivation or things like that is like, hey, how can I put systems in place? So the results I want are basically guaranteed.
So that's kind of where it started from before that, even like I said, like in terms that that was where it started in terms of me seeking coaching, but before that, I've always wanted to be the best that I can be due to different struggles or different pains I've experienced in my life, that was like an over overarching theme, I just want to become the best I can.
I know that investing in myself, investing and coaching, getting around people that know more than me is how I'll be able to do that and also, as I invest more and learn more and things like that and scale my business, I realize how little I actually know in comparison or what's out there.
So I think there's like a graph wherein the beginning you think you know everything and then you kind of get into it and as you learn more and more, you realize you actually know less and then eventually it kind of comes full circle where you're confident in the information that you have but I'm always willing to invest and to learn more and how much more out there there is to learn. So that's kind of my mindset around that.
Matt OK, that's awesome. What advice would you have for someone who is, like, considering a coach, considering hiring a coach? What would you say?
Michael I would say I mean, obviously, you know, reviews and things like that are important, but I think it's also important that you actually connect with the person that you're going to be working with. So obviously, I spent a good amount of time talking with Matt virtually through message and on our weekly calls, so I think if me and if me and Matt didn't connect on a personal level or an emotional level or similar energy levels, I don't think it would really be it would really work.
But I know that for Matt, he's very high energy, he likes to push his clients to achieve their goals, and I know that I look forward to my call with Matt every week because every Monday and it's kind of like a kind of like an energy boost because of Matt's very high energy and very enthusiastic.
So I think it's a call I look forward to and it gives me like a jump for the week and as we plan out, my week and what I'm going to be doing that week, it kinda just helps me jumpstart my week. So I think you really wanna be able to connect with that coach on like a personal and energetic level because you will spend a good amount of time talking to each other. You know, virtually a few messages as well as on phone calls.
Matt Sure and I should mention to the audience out there, because they may feel a little confused because I'm always pushing my digital coaching, and then once somebody is kind of ready to move up or if they want to actually have some dialog, some actual conversation, a lot of times clients will want to move up into a different coaching package.
But about 90 percent of my clients, it's all digital, so just kind of wanted to mention that because I'm always saying digital coaching and guys don't if you're going to if you're thinking of, like, I should do this, just do the seven-day free digital trial. Don't sign up for like a hundred dollars of coaching course with me without talking to me first, because it makes sense to kind of baby step into it.
So awesome Michael, this was so cool. What else is there anything else we should talk about? This is amazing... Right before the call, this is why I love coaching right before you hopped on because you and I were chatting before the interview and you said, oh, that I wanted to tell you I just won two new deals like you just landed two new clients yesterday.
And I should mention to people like your business is legit, man, you've got, you're making more money than 99 percent of America, probably, so you're doing awesome and I'm just so proud of you and I love working with you, and I just think the world to you, so I'm very honored to call you a client, and it was so... It was so cool when you said, hey man, I'd come on the podcast if you're ever looking for somebody, so that was great.
Michael Yeah, I really appreciate that Matt, and yeah, it is exciting to be able to... That's another thing I will say about the coaching, it's nice to be able to share your wins from someone who wants to see you succeed, that's something we didn't really touch on but, you know, some people deal with like maybe toxic friendships or people that don't support you as you grow, so it's nice to have someone that you can just share your wins and someone that actually wants to see you succeed.
I will also mention that I did also start out with the seven-day free trial that I was referring to and then from there, I did move up into one of the higher coaching packages as I saw it made sense for me and my situation.
Matt Yes, yes and what you just mentioned is 100000 percent true, that's why I use one of the reasons I use Chris Sowers, who is a coach through coach.me. I hire him because, you know, it's like if I celebrate something that's going really well for me with, like, a friend, I mean, hopefully, they're encouraging and they want to see me succeed or they wouldn't be a friend.
But I mean, you know, I'm actually paying Chris to be excited and like, he's excited for me because he can, you know, say, hey, I worked with this guy who had these successes and it's... It's hard you know, I just published my book, it's been going really well, it's been selling really well, and I don't know if I go tell a friend that I feel like I'm, like, bragging right?
And if I tell Chris who helped me with the book, he's like, this is badass I'm so proud of you, and it's genuine and it's amazing, it's amazing, so totally agree with that. Thanks again for coming on Michael, you were amazing. You're... You're so well-spoken and such an incredible person, so thanks again, and any last parting words of advice for people?
Michael I appreciate that Matt. And I think the one thing that I would just like to leave people with is if you're at a situation in life where I would assume most of you guys are where you're really looking for more or maybe you've had some reason on ideal circumstances, maybe things went wrong or things like that, you're not in the best place right now.
I just would say that always hold on to the hope, because there are lots of examples out there like me or Matt, and there's a lot of people that are really pushing and trying to grow. But we also maybe didn't have the most advantages in life either and we just took the most of what we had and ran with it and use that pain or those uncomfortable situations actually make us grow.
So I would say, like no matter what position you're in, no matter where you're at if you think that things aren't going well, that there always is the potential of a bright future. If you surround yourself with the right people if you invest in yourself and you just focus on building the right habits and taking a little bit of action each day and I know that for me if I didn't do those things, I wouldn't be in the position where I am now. So I think that's what I would want to leave everyone with
Matt Boom! I can't top that. So thank you so much, Michael and you did so well you have to come back on some time.
Michael Thank you Matt, thank you.
Matt OK, bye-bye.
Hey, guys, it's Matt again, I hope you loved that interview with Michael ain't he a cool guy? He's amazing, just an amazing guy, so that was so much fun for me, and like I said, that's the first time I've ever interviewed a client, so that was just super cool for me.
And yeah, that's it.
I am running out of spots guys, I limit the number of digital coaching engagements I do and I think I have maybe one or two spots that I... are open right now, I think it might just be one at the moment. But yeah, when I hit a certain number, I shut that down and I'm close, and then essentially if somebody drops off, then I open that spot up because there's no like long term agreement, you can start and stop your coaching whenever you want, so it's pretty fluid, people do drop off and so but if you ever try to sign up and you can't, that's why.
But I would recommend if you try to sign up and you're unable to sign up with another coach, there are some amazing coaches on there I think most of you know, I use a coach on there I use Chris Sowers right now as a writing coach, I've used Rob Filardo, he's a... Those are both amazing guys, I'd highly recommend if you're trying to write develop the habit of writing every day, hire Chris Sowers.
Sorry, you can probably hear Spike in the background.
Hire Chris Sowers and if and if you're looking for more of like a productivity type coach Rob Filardo is absolutely amazing just an amazing guy, he lives here in Indianapolis, too, and totally trust those guys, and all the coaches are really, really amazing. But I have personal experience with both of them.
So if you ever go to sign up with me and I'm... I'm not accepting new clients, sign up with one of them and or another coach that resonates with you.
So that's it, guys.
You can always use the promo code Matt East Week for a free week with me or with any coach on that platform, so keep that in mind. All right guys, that's it. Have a... have a great weekend and if you need anything, shoot me an email or hit me up on the socials. So see you later, bye-bye.
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Why The Purposeful Planning Method Works So Effectively
The Goal Achievement Podcast, hosted by Productivity Expert Matt East, is all about helping you find clarity, design a plan, and most importantly achieve your goals.
Matt shares four questions to help effectively reflect on your day and shares more of his new book, The Purposeful Planning Method: How to Plan Your Day, Beat Procrastination, and Regain Control of Your Time.
Try Matt’s digital coaching free for 7 days
Use Promo code: MattEastWeek
Why The Purposeful Planning Method Works So Effectively
Podcast Transcription
Hey, guys, what's up? Welcome to the Goal Achievement podcast.
I hope you're all doing really, really well. On today's episode, I'm going to share another chapter from my book, so most of you guys know you guys have done an incredible job supporting this book and buying the book, and I'm so thankful for that.
But my book has come out, it's called The Purposeful Planning Method: How to Plan Your Day, Beat Procrastination and Regain Control of Your Time.
So today I'm going to share the third chapter from the audiobook, so if you haven't listened to the previous episode, the previous podcast episode, go dig into that, stop this, go back and listen to the previous episode and then come back to this one. That way you can listen to the introduction and chapter one and chapter two of the audiobook and the previous episode or else this episode is not going to make any sense.
So I'll share Chapter three in a moment, but I figured first we could talk a little bit about how this year is going so far, so only a couple full days left in February. How crazy is that? Insane time just flies and it's a good reminder for everyone this far into the year and I shared this with my coaching clients today.
So much of high performance and being ultra-productive is about the fundamentals and half the battle is just taking the time to reflect and notice what's working and what's not working for you. And then, of course, figuring out how to amplify what... what you're doing well and stopping or tweaking what's not going well in this seems really basic and it is, but we all forget to reflect as often as we should.
So just remember to take some time at some point during your day or towards the end of your day just to reflect on what's working well for you and what's not working.
And I have four guiding questions to help you with this process. So let's dig through those real fast.
Number one, what is working well for me and my career or business? And would it be beneficial to do more of this?
It's question number one.
Question number two, what is working well for me in my relationships? Would it be helpful to do more of this?
Number three, what's not working well for me in my career or business, is there a way to stop this or would it be beneficial to adjust how I'm approaching something?
And number four, what's not working well for me in my relationships? And is there a way to stop this or would it be helpful to adjust how I'm approaching something?
So there's, those are four guiding questions to help you just kind of stop and reflect and just kind of evaluate what's going well and what's working for you and what's not going well, what's not working for you.
Keep in mind, there are still think it's 308 days left in 2020 as I'm recording this, which is plenty of time to achieve what you're looking to do this year. But, you know, we have to take the right actions each day, which is why it's so important to reflect on am I taking those right actions, what's working, what's not working, and there's plenty of time to still lean in and make 2020 the year you want it to be.
So I have 2 digital coaching spots open currently, and I know in the past a lot of podcast listeners have tried to sign up on coach.me and it wouldn't allow you to sign up because I was full essentially, so I stopped taking clients once I hit a certain threshold. But right now I am accepting new clients I have two spots open and those will get filled really quickly after this podcast goes out, so if you want one, jump on those.
Digital coaching starts at 86 bucks a month and we interact every day, so it's all digital, it's all through an app, but essentially you and I will be texting about your performance and about your productivity, and if you want to try digital coaching with me for free for 7 days, you can do that it's 100 percent free, it's amazing, I would highly recommend you try it for free before you… before you just sign up.
So there's a promo code for that, and that is MattEastWeek, so it's M a t t E a s t W e e k, and I know there are a ton of global listeners of this podcast, I have a ton of global clients, only about half of my clients are from the United States so don't be afraid to jump on there I have clients from everywhere, I mean, literally, like everywhere, so try it use the promo code if you want to try digital coaching.
I think I think you'd love it if you like this podcast you're gonna love actually interacting with me one on one and I message you every single day so it's pretty amazing, it's... it's very helpful and as you guys all know, I use a coach myself I use Chris Powers for my writing and he's amazing and it's on the same platform and I love it.
So that's it all right, let's dig into Chapter three of The Purposeful Planning Method remember, you can buy this book on Amazon it's available digitally or you can buy the physical book and it will be available on Audible any day now. So it's still not available as of like right now I just checked, it has not gone live yet, but it will soon, will very soon.
So I hope you guys love this it's another chapter so that gets you a good chunk into the book, and I got a ton of really good feedback on the intro in Chapter one and Chapter two. So let me know what you think about this and if you would, please share this with a friend and share the previous episode with a friend if you think it could help them, and let me know if you guys have any questions, so here you go the third chapter of The Purposeful Planning Method, enjoy.
Chapter three, why does this method work so effectively?
"The greatest happiness is to transform one's feelings into action" Madame De Stael.
The Purposeful Planning Method relies on two time tested and straightforward concepts to ensure you plan each day effectively
First, prioritizing what you want to focus on each day is critical to your success and.
Two, embracing positive habits into your daily routine is the most effective way to ensure you achieve what you want.
These two concepts are the backbone of everything we'll discuss in this book. Let's touch on why each is so important.
Prioritizing is critical to our success because it helps ensure we intentionally focus on our most important projects, activities, and relationships throughout the day. Having clarity about our priorities is one way to ensure we're thoughtful and effective with our time. And, behavioral scientists suggest our habits consume 40 percent of our day. This means being intentional about our habits can help ensure we use our time as purposefully, meaningfully, and productively as possible.
Of course, you didn't need to read this book to learn how prioritizing your time and creating good habits will help you be more productive. Although we know each of these is critical to our success, it can be a challenge to actually do them. And that's why this book is vital to your success. It provides a method to follow each morning to ensure you start each day with clear priorities and intentional habits.
I mentioned earlier the intent of this book isn't to convince you how important it is to plan your day. After all, you already chose to read a book titled, The Purposeful Planning Method. This means you recognize planning is essential to your success. However, as you adopt this method, you may still interact with colleagues, friends, and family members who might try to minimize how necessary planning is. Be cautious about accepting advice from these people. If you encounter anyone who downplays the importance of planning, consider the level of success they have attained in their life before taking their advice. The truth is, planning and prioritizing is key for anyone who is looking to maximize their potential. I strongly encourage you to speak with as many successful people as you can to discover how they plan their time. Connecting with these high performers, these high achievers, will only reinforce how critical planning and prioritizing is to your success.
Most people reading this book already understand how planning can help them be more productive at work. And it can definitely do that. But its benefits reach far beyond work. Remember, the purpose of using this method is not to do more stuff just for the sake of doing more. It's the opposite. The aim is to help you identify what's most important to you each day so you can plan how you want to use your time and your energy beyond work.
Use this method to: Reach your peak level of health and fitness. Dedicate more time to your meditative and spiritual practice. Get out of debt and create financial abundance in your life. Spend more time and be more present with your family. Nurture valuable relationships and friendships. Relax and enjoy your leisure time more, and. Have a thriving marriage or relationship.
Or use it for any activity you choose to focus on. There are zero limitations. This method uses a proven scheduling technique called time blocking. Time blocking allows you to proactively assign blocks of time to complete tasks throughout the day.
The world's most successful people have practiced time blocking for centuries.
Ben Franklin, an entrepreneur, author, and signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution, used a block schedule to structure his day. Franklin shared his block schedule in his autobiography and said "Every part of my business should have its allotted time".
You can view Franklin's block schedule and image number 1. Listeners can find this in the accompanying PDF within the Audible app, or you can easily find these examples online on my website at www.matt-east.com/book. You can see all of these images there.
In addition to using the proven practice of time blocking, The Purposeful Planning Method leverages habit creation and routine development to perform at your peak. By embracing these techniques, you'll be using the same daily practices as the most successful people in the history of the world.
Examples include:
Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin and a self-made billionaire, provides a great example of time blocking. Branson blocks time on his calendar to ensure he exercises daily. He says, "I play a very hard game of singles tennis every morning at 6 a.m."
The media icon and philanthropist Oprah follows the same daily routine upon waking. "First thing in the morning, I brush my teeth and take the dogs out", she says. Then she completes "a series of spiritual exercises that I do every day. Then I meditate."
According to Walter Isaacson, author of the biography, Steve Jobs, he says "Steve had an evening routine where he would come home and sit at a nice long wooden table in the kitchen of his house in Palo Alto to eat dinner every night with his kids and his great wife."
In the book The Open Road: The Global Journey of the 14th Dalai Lama, the author shares, "By nine a.m. the Dalai Lama himself had already been up for more than five hours, awakening, as he always does, at three-thirty a.m., to spend his first four hours of the day meditating."
Other successful people known for relying on their daily routines to create an extraordinary body of work include:
Best-selling authors: Maya Angelou, Haruki Murakami, Kurt Vonnegut, Ernest Hemingway, E.B. White, and Stephen King. They're all known for their commitment to their routines. Stephen King famously writes every day of the year, without exception beginning work between 8 a.m. and 8:30 a.m.
Championship athletes: Usain Bolt, Messi, Michael Jordan, Novak Djokovic, Carli Lloyd, and Tom Brady all use or were known for using their game-day rituals and daily habits to perform at their peak. In his book, Brady shares the following, "To create stronger, faster connections in our brains, we need to practice a habit, skill, or behavior again and again. The more we practice that habit, skill or behavior, the more automatically our brains recognize it."
Beethoven, one of the greatest composers of all time, and Pablo Picasso, one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, were both recognized for their commitment to process and routine to ensure their creativity. Picasso said, "Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success."
I particularly love this quote because there is a misconception that creative disciplines don't require structure and planning. However, in most cases, you'll find the world's greatest creators are reliant on habits and routines during their most prolific periods. Nelson Mandela, a beloved political leader and former president of South Africa, was well-known for his commitment to his daily workout throughout his life.
In his autobiography, Nelson says, "I attended the gym for one and a half hours each evening from Monday through Thursday. We did an hour of exercise, some combination of roadwork, skipping rope, calisthenics, or shadow boxing, followed by 15 minutes of bodywork, some weightlifting, and then sparring.".
These are just a few examples of extraordinary people who used routines and habits to achieve great things. The Purposeful Planning Method doesn't try to reinvent the wheel. It leverages the exact principles these leaders use to achieve incredible results. If there is a well-known person whose work you admire, I would really encourage you to learn more about their habits and their daily routine. A simple Google search will typically do the trick.
I also asked clients for their feedback about why The Purposeful Planning Method works so effectively. And here are some of the feedback I receive from them:
"I love planning this way because it ensures I'm proactive instead of reactive with my time. It ensures I take action on what's most important to me." That's from Elise.
"I've noticed by having a clear plan of attack for my day, I feel less overwhelmed. I have a plan for my day, but I also have a plan for when unexpected things pop up throughout the day. I feel in complete control of my time." That's for Mica.
"Using this method has completely ended my tendency to procrastinate. Beginning my day with a plan and clarity about what I'm focusing on makes it much easier to take action throughout the day." Tobias.
"This approach has allowed me to do activities around my energy pattern. This helps me align my peak energy with my daily riding and allows me to write more each day." That's from David.
"Prioritizing leisure and time with my family has been a game-changer for me. I feel much more connected with my family, zero guilt when relaxing and I'm no longer burned out on my business." That's from Andrea.
In the following chapters, you will learn exactly how to use The Purposeful Planning Method as you reflect on your schedule, I encourage you to approach it as a self-experiment. You will see positive results immediately after adopting this method, and you can use the 10-day challenge later in this book as a guide to get started. But I just want to say, enjoy the daily planning process, designing how you will spend your time each day should be a rewarding and pleasant experience. Embrace it and remove any pressure you've put on yourself. We're going to be striving for progress, not for perfection along the way, and particularly as we get started, as we begin. Remember, there is zero downside to planning your time more effectively. But the benefits are endless, so stick with this. It will positively impact every aspect of your life. And remember, anyone can successfully use this method.
Chapter Recap.
The Purposeful Planning Method relies on two time-tested and straightforward concepts to ensure you plan each day effectively:
First, prioritizing what you want to focus on each day is critical to your success and...
Two, embracing positive habits into your daily routine is the most effective way to ensure you achieve what you want.
Prioritizing is essential to our success because it ensures we intentionally focus on our most important projects, activities, and relationships throughout the day. Being intentional about our habits ensures we use our time as purposefully, meaningfully, and productively as possible.
The Purposeful Planning Method leverages the same principles used by the most accomplished and successful people to ever live.
Hey guys, it's Matt again, back on the podcast, and just want to say thanks so much for listening, hope you guys loved that. And if you haven't... grab a copy of that book, man, it's getting great feedback. It's sold way more copies than I ever expected and grab yourself a copy.
And also, it would mean the world to me if you shared this episode with a friend, I'm trying to get The Purposeful Planning Method message out there, and if you could help do that, that would be amazing and would mean the world to me.
So let me know if you guys need anything.
Remember, there is coaching spots available as of when I go on this episode, so that could change quickly. So don't get mad at me if you try to sign up and you can't, but that's it, if you do try to sign up, feel free to email me in that way I'll know that you're trying to be coached and I'll let you know the next time a spot opens up.
So that's it, guys. Hope you're all doing really, really well, and thanks a ton for listening. Make it a great week.
Join Matt's Book Launch Team! And Listener Questions.
The Goal Achievement Podcast, hosted by Productivity Expert Matt East, is all about helping you find clarity, design a plan, and most importantly achieve your goals.
Matt invites listeners to join his book launch team and answers listener questions.
Join Matt's Book Launch Team! And Listener Questions
Podcast Transcription
What's up, guys? Welcome to the Goal Achievement podcast.
Thank you so much for listening. I'm your host, Matt East, and man, it's been a while since I've posted episodes because you might still hear it in my voice, I've been sick and my voice was just completely wrecked for like, I don't know, a while I got sick like twice, I hadn't been sick in like ten years and I got the flu and man, the flu is no joke, so I didn't realize that the flu was could be such a serious issue.
So I'm... I'm back I'm feeling good, I'm totally healthy again and it's crazy how much after you've been sick like that, just feeling normal is an amazing thing. So it feels amazing to just feel normal and yeah, that's it.
So this is going to be a really quick episode. I just kind of wanted to hop on and say hi to everybody, a lot of people have e-mailed and... and all that, but yeah anyway.
Big announcement today, something that's super exciting for me, and then I actually have two listener questions to answer and keep sending in listener questions and I will, I will try to be a lot more consistent or I plan to be a lot more consistent with the podcast. As long as questions are coming in, I'll record episodes, so... So, yeah.
So the big announcement is my book, I've been working on it like a crazy person. And it is, it's about here, it's called:
The Purposeful Planning Method: How to Plan Your Day, Beat Procrastination, and Regain Control of Your Time.
I'm very proud of it, I'm really excited to share it with you guys and share it with the world. I think it's an important book, it reveals how to spend more time on the projects, activities, and relationships that are most important and meaningful to you. So, I mean, what would what could be more be more impactful than that?
So... so what I'm looking for is people to join my book launch team, so what you'll get is a free digital copy of the book and that's what's in it for you and I'll be looking for I, I need reviews, so I need to get some reviews going on Amazon because that helps so much with like all aspects of everything. So just helps with, like the algorithm to show the book more and all kinds of good stuff.
But I am looking for people who would want a free copy of the book and then if you're comfortable with it, leaving a review and that's it, simple as that, so if you're interested, shoot me an email. My email is Matt@Matt-East.com so you can probably just type in Matt East and like Google, like productivity coach and it will pull right up. And so it's Matt@Matt-East.com and just put in like your title of your email or what's that called title, I don't know ... Title of your email just put: Book launch team and say you want to join and will be off and running. So, anybody that wants to do that, it's a great way to get a free copy of the book. So yeah. Do it. Yeah. Hop on there.
Obviously I'm recording this on Sunday, January 19th that's when it will go live and obviously, this offer only stands for what, like the next, I don't know, week or so. So if you're listening to this and like past a week, that will still be an option so if you're interested in a free copy, email me and we'll get that going. So I think you guys all know in my audience, I think you, guys will love that book.
There's going to be audio copies and obviously your physical copy and then the digital. So what I'll be sending you guys is the digital copy if you want to check it out. So, yeah, that's that I haven't recorded the... the audio version yet because my voice, like I said, it's just been like really struggling. So anyway, I'm doing that this week and then there'll be an audio version.
OK, listener questions so let's go. Both questions are from the same person, you'll probably pick up on that.
So, Matt, I'm starting a coaching business in 2020 you seem to have a successful business.
Do you have any advice on how to charge my customers? I was thinking of having them pay one time. In advance for a three-month coaching package, do you think that will work?
OK, so, yeah, that would work. But what I always recommend in any I almost recommend this to any business owner that can pull it off. If your business model allows for monthly recurring revenue models, that's what I would suggest.
So what that means is you're charging your customer each month and then you know that that revenue is basically always coming in and every time you make a new sale, you're just growing that monthly recurring revenue. That's how I've been really lucky or been really, I don't know, fortunate with my coaching business, that's the kind of the model for revenue I learned about when I was working for a technology company.
A lot of tech companies and software companies use that model, think of like how many companies you pay monthly and they kind of get you in the door with that as opposed to like a one-time fee like, I don't think of subscriptions like Netflix or something like that. I mean, that's...
So, you know, if you think about it, why that makes sense is it's a low entry, you can have a much lower price point for your customer to get him in the door, so like as opposed to charging somebody 100 bucks one time, if you charge them 10 bucks per month, they may be more likely to to be able to afford that.
So you do 10 bucks a month and that's actually 120 dollars instead of 100 over the course of a year and yeah, that money just kind of builds on... on, I don't know, builds on itself over time.
So, for instance, you know, my digital coaching package is only 86 dollars a month, so that's, I'm not talking with those clients like over the phone or in any way, it's all digital coaching where we're basically essentially texting back and forth and on a coaching platform and it's an app. And so those clients pay me 86 bucks a month, that doesn't sound like much, but that's over a thousand dollars a year if they stay as a client for a year.
So, yeah, so it's a lot easier to kind of get them in the door and then get clients in the door and then it's it's a lot they're more open-minded about it too, because if I charge somebody that thousand dollars upfront, like, you know, not very many people can even afford that, so it just makes it way more prohibitive.
So I would say try to charge your clients reoccurring on a monthly basis. And, you know, then every time you make a new sale, you were kind of just adding to that, I don't know, a pile of money that's coming in month over, month over month. And as opposed to, you know, if you charge your clients just every three months and, you know, maybe there's not you didn't say this, but if there's I was assuming that's like a three-month package and then they're done.
The problem with that is you've got to you got to make sure you got more sales coming in or else your cash is going to run dry. Whereas with the model, if you were able to charge them monthly, it really kind of you can really gain a lot of steam really quickly and with each new customer, you're just building your, your revenue. So that's what I would recommend 100 percent, no doubt about it.
I recommend whenever possible to invoice your customers monthly, makes it cheaper for them and can really add up for you and it's I don't know, it's just a good model. There's a reason why a lot of the, you know, best technology companies in the world are, are built that way or invoice their clients month after month after month after month as opposed to like a one time.
The other problem with like a one time deal is, you know, you really give your customers the opportunity to evaluate, like, man, if they're paying a thousand dollars a year, are they going to way more likely to, like, cancel service because they're evaluating like, Am I going to do this again? whereas if it's monthly, you know, a lot of people will just kind of hang on there and, and keep being invoiced, and hopefully, they're getting a huge benefit from it.
I actually don't try to keep my customers, you know, for for a full year, I mean, I try to kind of, you know, enable them to to be more productive and do what they're trying to do and then I kind of will try to push them out the door and let them be on their own. But, yeah, that's a whole another topic.
So another question you asked was:
How do you handle coaching your clients if you take a vacation?
So the app that I use, I can actually pause my coaching, so through coach.me you can pause your coaching and it stops during that period you're not charging your client. So it's like if you take a ten-day vacation or whatever... When I went to Africa, I paused my coaching for like three weeks or four weeks or something and it, it doesn't... It stops the charging your clients for those days that you have pause, that's the way I do it.
Yeah, you have to think about how you want to handle it, I know this year Rachel and I have a ton of trips planned, we're going to travel a lot and I am going to pause my coaching quite a bit. I only paused it last year for that big Africa trip so on other vacations, I actually kept it going.
But this year I'm going to pause those like when I'm gone for a week or two, I'm going to pause those and yeah, just take that time off and work on other stuff, so that's it.
That's, those are the two questions, if you have any questions, shoot them my way. Yeah, those are fun and interesting to answer, that's it.
Oh, I was going to mention also guys this week. So it's Sunday, so if you're listening to this like Sunday or Monday, remember to take some time and... and reflect and think about what you want to try to accomplish this week.
What do you want to achieve with your time this week?
And then, you know, remember to prioritize actionable tasks each day that will help ensure you accomplish those things that you're looking to achieve. So that's how, that's how... that's how this works, that's how you get stuff done.
So you know, one of the goals behind setting your priorities each day is to approach your day with a lot of clarity and intentionality and, yeah, determine your vision for the week and execute on it, and that's the best way to… to go about that.
All right, guys, let's make it a great week.
Shoot me a note if you want to join the book launch team and you want a free book, man. That's a good offer and if you send me a note, man, and it's, you know, so it's Sunday, January 19th, and it's within the next week... You're in, I will send you a book and, and you'll be on the team.
So I would love your help and would love some of... The more the merrier. So shoot me a note, again, that's Matt@Matt-East.com that's my email. So hit me up and would love to hear from you guys.
That's it, make it a great week and let me know if you need anything bye-bye.
Living and Working in Bali, with Squarespace Designer Charlotte O'Hara
The Goal Achievement Podcast, hosted by Productivity Expert Matt East, is all about helping you find clarity, design a plan, and most importantly achieve your goals.
This episode was supported by findcourses.co.uk learn more about their online courses and tech tutorials and training here.
Charlotte O'Hara is a web designer/developer, Squarespace SEO expert, product maker, and online educator.
Her goal is to show her community that anyone can build and grow an amazing website that supports their business online, no matter what kind of technical knowledge or design background they have!
She loves collaborating with small-to-medium sized businesses and creative entrepreneurs to build custom Squarespace websites that are easy to navigate, convert and drive sales. Her focus is on crisp, clean designs and she believes that all websites should be functional and fun.
Charlotte’s free email course called Launch Your Best Site where you can sign up to learn how to design, build and launch Squarespace websites - link HERE.
Here's a link to Charlotte’s Youtube channel where she has lots of video tutorials, mostly about web design & development, Squarespace, SEO and online business.
Connect with Charlotte here:
Website | Twitter | Pinterest | Instagram | Youtube
Living and Working in Bali
Podcast Transcription
Hey guys, welcome to the Goal Achievement podcast, thank you so much for tuning in.
I hope you guys are all doing really well. I am really excited to share this interview that I did with Charlotte O'Hara. If you're a longtime listener of the podcast, you know, I love learning from people who approach and think about things differently than the masses. And I really love people who have the guts to live life and do things on their own terms, which is why I begged Charlotte O'Hare to be on the podcast.
So she's an entrepreneur who is killing it, she's lived in Bali for the past couple of years and that's where she's grown her business from. How cool is that living in Bali? So she is living that dream if you're unfamiliar with Bali, I believe it's a providence in Indonesia. So it is beautiful Google if you're unfamiliar with it, it is absolutely incredible.
So she's originally from Canada, but she moved to Bali to live the dream and she's doing it. So she's technically a specialist at building custom Squarespace websites and she does a lot of Squarespace SEO auditing and consulting but she's awesome.
And a lot of people I have on the podcast, they ask me if they can come on the podcast and a lot of time, most of the time I tell people I'm not looking for people, but occasionally I begged people to come on and she was not looking to be on the podcast I totally sought her out because I joined her email list like six months ago, and her email game is so tight that I wanted to learn more about it.
So I figured, hey, I'll have her on the podcast maybe I can pick her brain. And that's exactly what I did, so we talked about exactly that, like how she got so good at writing emails to her email list, how she, like, plans that out and then we talk a lot about her move into Bali. What's that? What is that like?
And she has some awesome resources, though, she has a free resource for you guys it's called Launch Your Best Site, and that's where you can sign up to learn how to design, build and launch a Squarespace website for free. So I'll include that link in the show notes if you're interested, and then also I'll share her other like social sites on there.
But she's hilarious man and she talks in the interview about how entrepreneurs are too focused a lot of times on social media and they need to have, have a website and actually be selling stuff and she is spot on, in my opinion, there. So enjoy my here's my interview with Charlotte O'Hare, I hope you guys love this one and enjoy it. Let me know if you guys need anything bye-bye.
Matt Welcome to the goal achievement podcast, Charlotte, thank you so much for joining me. How are you doing?
Charlotte Oh, thanks so much for having me, Matt. I'm doing really well, and I'm so glad that we're able to connect and chat today.
Matt Yes, so I am so excited to connect with you, I know you're, you I, I pursued you, I wanted to have you on the podcast because you are a specialist at building custom Squarespace websites and you do a lot of Squarespace SEO audit and consulting. I have three square Squarespace sites, so I'm interested in picking your brain on all of that. But I actually initially hunted you down because you are so good at writing emails to your email list, I'm like... I'm so bad at it and you're so good at it, I'm super jealous.
Charlotte Thank you.
Matt Yeah, it was one of those emails that inspired me to ask you to be on the podcast. So I'm going to kind of remind you what it was. And I'd love to kind of chat through, chat through that.
Charlotte Let me know which one was it? I mean, I got some... some pretty crazy emails that are sent out. We can talk about that a bit more, but let's hear which one.
Matt Yeah, it was probably maybe a month or two ago. And you were in like a cafe and you overheard a conversation with two guys and one of the guys was convincing the other guy who was about to start a like a restaurant...
Charlotte A business or something.
Matt But he did not, he just needed Instagram and he did not need any other Web presence, like no website. And you like we're like, that is the worst advice ever?
Charlotte I was dying.
Matt Yes and you were like for you know, people don't realize how cheap it can be to get a really pretty solid, you know Web presence up. And you made the point like for twelve bucks a month like you could have a beautiful website and so I just love that take...
Charlotte Thank you.
Matt And I thought it was spot on yeah, I thought it was spot on and that's what inspired me... I got to have this girl on the podcast, she's like, I like... I think the same thing, I'm like, it's so possible to, you know, I do it coaching. And people are like, well, I want to start this business...
Charlotte And do it you need a website like Instagram is not enough, no, no, no, no, no.
Matt And it's so possible and yeah so that's that is definitely why I wanted to, to connect because of your passion around Squarespace and around like there's just it's there's never been a better time to be able to build a, build a website for cheap and it be, you know, really be beautiful.
Charlotte Yes I agree 100 percent yeah, so in that case, like this is something that I was sitting there minding my own business at that cafe and these two guys were talking about how one of them was opening a business and I joked in my email, I was like, oh, it's the hype man. Being like, yeah, yeah, you can do it. Yeah. And I was like, yes you can, you can.
But then the topic of a website came up and then the friend, the hype man, as I called him, was just like, no problem. Like all you need is Instagram, it's totally fine and stuff and I was like, what? No terrible advice, because if you think about it, like you own your website, you own the domain, you're like in charge of everything. Whereas if you just have your presence online on social media, like you're completely at the mercy of that platform.
So as we hear people kind of complaining and commiserating all the time about, oh, the algorithm, the algorithm and I just want to say, like, look, if you have the website and you're directing people to your website, at least you own that, you can control the experience a lot more than if you're just, you know, you have to pay to play basically, at this point when it comes to social media.
So that is like a firm point that I believe in, like 100 percent. So whether someone has like a services-based business, they sell products, they're kind of a small solopreneur operation or if you're a bigger company, you need a website. And yeah, my job as a web designer, developer, and like an expert is I make sure that people not only have a website, but it actually looks good and functions and does what you want it to do. So that's kind of how we got connected and I love that that was your first story. You're like, oh my God, this guy.
Matt Yeah, yeah, I know for sure. And I mean, not to mention, like, you know, so much of like what Google's pulling is going to be somewhat like website based I mean, it's hard for the index like a social site, so it's, yeah I mean, it's so important and I think the example was and I could be wrong, you tell me you're the one that wrote it, but I think it was the guy was starting a restaurant and like I know I love, you know, Rachel and I, my wife, we go out to eat all the time and I love to take it like a peek at the menu prior to and, you know, that's so much easier to do, like through the right through a website. So anyway... you make it make a great point though about it being important for, for you owning it, for you, owning that content is huge, no doubt about that.
Charlotte Exactly because you know, you think about even in just some of the other social media platforms people can build these big presences on it and then like one day it just goes away because, like, the platform dies out, right? and then what are you going to do?
You can't really, like, transport those people quite the same way, whereas if you're using social media or other like other platforms like that, in addition to your website, then you have infinitely more control and like much more of like a long-lasting relationship with your audience. So, you know, whether they're coming by once or twice or they're following you for years on end, if you're always like, oh, you know, like get the merch on my website, check out this thing on my website, blah, blah, blah. Like it's so much better.
Matt Sure and you obviously approach email the same way because you focus so much on your email list. I mean, is that your thing?
Charlotte Exactly, so I am not I am not very active on social media. I mean, like I use it like kind of personally, but it's not part of my... my own business, which is, you know, like web design, development, and SEO. But for me, my bread and butter is email marketing so when someone comes to my website, my big goal is to get them to join in on my email list I offer different freebies to get them to come in and stuff, and then from there I usually send out like my weekly email is kind of what I'm famous for and, you know, on those weekly emails, we talk about things from like Web design, development, Squarespace SEO, online business, like anything like that and they're fun because those emails, it's you know, obviously it's offering value, but I really wanted to kind of write in a way that feels like fun and casual and stuff.
So it's not just me being like, here's the latest blog post or something it's like I usually write one story and then somehow tie it back into whatever it is that I'm offering or promoting or something. So there's even though there's usually a sales pitch in the emails, like the... the content is funny and engaging enough that like people are down to stick around.
So email is huge to me because it's how I book out all of my services, it's how I sell my digital products, it's all through email marketing and stuff. So yeah, it's definitely something I've had to kind of learn by trial and error, but I was thinking what kind of emails would I want to read? Like how can I do it? It's not just annoying, boring like filler in my inbox and then I started writing it and it's been like an honest and unreal response, I think it's a little different, it stands out. So, yeah thank you so much for appreciating enjoying them.
Matt So is anybody like is there any inspiration to you that, like, you follow someone's email like and all year like on their lists and you're just like, oh my God, this person is so good I want to try to emulate them to a certain degree or is it...
Charlotte No, It's... it's mostly just for me. But you know what I do? It's I find various like on the email service providers, they have like, you know, whether it's a Converter or Infusionsoft or like other things, they have a lot of templates or guides on their website. So, for example, I just wrote a, I just did a flash sale for my birthday for one of my digital products and I was like, I don't know how to actually run an email marketing campaign for a flash sale so I found a bunch of like guides and resources that are like, here's the information you should have, here is a rough timeline or schedule to send out and so I use that from there.
But then when in terms of covering the actual content, like the written part, I just straight upright from free flow it basically. So I'm not using someone’s yeah... Like there's I don't know, I don't really use anyone for inspiration, but I do rely very heavily on kind of the guides and templates and then I completely customize it for myself and what I think my audience will like.
Matt So do you consider yourself more of like a digital marketer, a designer, an SEO specialist, or like what bucket do you go into?
Charlotte Yeah, I would say like if someone says, what do you do? I just say I build websites, I do design and development, but then I also do a lot of consulting around SEO, mostly for Squarespace Web sites. So those are kind of the two like original foundations of my business, there's like the web design and development and then discourse-based SEO site consulting.
But then earlier this year, I also started selling digital products on my website, and you know some of that is I have kind of like a DIY online course where people can take it and learn all about SEO, that's a big one. I have some other kind of other digital products and so those ones, when it comes to selling those, I guess it's more online marketing, right? Because you have to do that.
And so online marketing is something that I didn't know anything about beforehand so I had to completely learn how online marketing works and straight out, that's been a lot of trial and error, but also kind of fun to learn and experiment with something, something new. Yeah, so that's what I would say the main thing of my business is, and how I would self-identify. Build websites and then from there, if they ask another question, I'll be like, OK, well let me tell you.
Matt And when you're at this point when you are building a website, are you always doing it on Squarespace, or do you still do other platforms or what?
Charlotte No, at this point I only built Squarespace websites and there's a few reasons for that but one of the best ones is that I don't really offer a lot of ongoing like maintenance after the projects, it's kind of just like, you know, I do it and hand over the reins to the client and they either self maintain or they have someone on their team doing it. So it needed, I needed to be working with a platform that was easy for people to use and with afterward. So that was kind of one of the reasons why I picked Squarespace because it's so user-friendly.
And then the second reason, too, is that it's just given the type of websites that I am building, Squarespace makes it really fast to do it and so I found that I was able to do a website in less time, but still charge the same amount of money because it's still a wonderful end result and finished product for the person. So from like a cost point of view, it was always so much faster for me to build on Squarespace than it would be to use a different platform like WordPress in particular.
Matt And you mentioned you have somewhat transitioned to more like recently offering some digital products as opposed to just services. What drove that decision or is driving that transition?
Charlotte Yeah, so part of it is the you know, the idea that everyone wants to be able to kind of like make money while you sleep and... And I was like, OK, I know that probably won't happen, but the good thing about digital products is that if you put them up online, like sales come fairly possibly, right?
It's not like I have to find a brand new client each time, it's like I do the work upfront, put it for sale on my website, and then people can just buy it at their convenience pretty much. And so that was like a big thing, too, because I wanted to diversify and you know try a different form of business that maybe would be a bit more passive, I guess.
And so from there I was thinking, OK, what do I already use or know really well, like how am I already positioned as an expert in something and you know what do I have experience with? And from that, it was kind of how I was able to create my digital products or leverage content that I already had and package it up in a way that like worked for me, but then also worked for anyone who was buying it, too.
Matt So just curious, with your digital products, do you find it's mostly like past clients who are actually buying this or like-new customers you've never heard of them and...
Charlotte Yup, new people for sure, so often. So, for example, with my, I guess the online course, it's all about Squarespace SEO it's people that just want to do it like DIY style. It's more cost-effective for the people to buy the course than it would be to consulting with me and you know they have if you think about it like the consulting is about an hour and a half versus they have the course content, which is I think like over six hours of video content, plus like all these other lessons.
So for them you know, they're like, OK, I can get a bit like, yes, it's not personalized, but they get more information from it, and then they can take that to work on their own website, which is great whereas if we do consulting often it's just we talk about a lot during the hour and a half, but then they have to go back and do it anyways. So yeah, that course has been really neat because it's, it's just straight up like people that probably follow me on my email list and are getting prompted to buy it through the email marketing that I do but it's usually not past clients.
Matt What do you think's the biggest mistake you see Squarespace users make with their SEO? Do you have anything that, like, pops to mind?
Charlotte Well, it's the mistake is usually that they're just not doing anything in the first place, which is the crazy part. So, you know, usually, they will have built up well, sometimes people they build up decent content on the website. But you know so the Web page, if we're talking about it, you know, they're doing things like a title, headers, you know images maybe have a name like that's good, but then with Squarespace on each page on a Squarespace website, you can fill out the SEO title and description fields, and that is basically just Squarespace packaging it up, giving you is a little gift, saying, here, fill this out and that will help you with your SEO.
And the biggest thing I see is people just don't even do that in the first place. And, you know, they're not filling out the site-wide SEO description or anything like that either. So that would be the biggest one. It's like these are like giving props to you that people are just completely not touching at all. And then from there, I mean, of course, you know there are other more like advanced SEO strategies that a lot of people are getting into, like they're not building backlinks to their website or you know other like they're not really building backlinks, which is a big one, too. But I would say the biggest thing is that they're just not even filling out these basic SEO fields.
Matt Interesting and then the other thing I wanted to, like, really touch on with you is kind of how you you're like, I don't know, lifestyle of traveling and how, you know, your business is very virtual and not location dependent. Would you mind chatting through that a little bit like where you are in the world right now?
Charlotte Yeah, well, as we are recording this right now, I am in Bali, in Indonesia. So I have been living in Bali for almost two years now, be two years at basically in new years, so coming up quite soon. And I am Canadian originally, so from Vancouver on the West Coast. And I was...
I built my... I started my business a few years ago and at the time I was living and working in Canada, everything was going really well and then I decided that I wanted to go and meet up with a friend who was working in Bali, but she was working as a marine biologist. But she told me that there are these things called coworking spaces and the Internet is good and you'll love the warm weather and all of this kind of stuff.
So I came over thinking I'd be here for two, maybe three months, and if we're being totally honest, I thought it would be almost more of like a vacation than an opportunity to truly work and bring my business with me, and I kind of went in at the end, like, OK, I have some projects that I want to do that if it all just crashes and burns, it's not the end of the world, so if I get it done, great. It's not like that's OK, my business will survive.
Because I didn't think that I would be able to actually like live and work abroad because I just, I didn't know anyone that had ever done it right? I knew people that had worked at a company abroad, been living more like a traditional ex-pat, but I didn't know anyone that did the whole like work online or sometimes you hear it referred to as a digital nomad, I didn't know anyone that did that.
So, yes, I came to Bali about two years ago thinking I'd be here for two or three months, and then I completely fell in love with it and I just kept, oh, extend my stay, extend my stay a little bit longer. And then finally I decided, you know what, like this is working and it's working really well, and given the type of business that I have, so much of the client work that I do is, the projects that I'm working on, it doesn't require, it doesn't require at all any face to face stuff like every now and then I'll do like a Zoom or Skype meeting or a phone call or something like that, but it doesn't require in face work, and most of my clients were not in Vancouver anyways where I was from, so that wasn't different.
And yeah like we do a lot of communication through either a project management tool or email anyways so it doesn't affect my clients where I am at all as long as the work gets done, then they're happy with it and I would say that sometimes it does mean that I wake up a little bit early or stay up a little late to make sure that a meeting time works. But again, we call that the ex-pat tax and it's not really a huge deal at all, it's like a small price to pay to get to live this experience.
But yeah, now I've done the work and traveled around and I think I've done it in like six countries now, but Bali is my base, which is pretty cool, and I've even done it actually in Cambodia, I've spent a couple of weeks working in Cambodia and that blew me away because I didn't know what to expect because the last time I've been to Cambodia, I was just like a straight-up, like Southeast Asia backpacker wearing the olive green pants and everything and then here I am actually working and running my business out of a coworking space in Phnom Penh and I'm like, if you had told me five years ago, I would never, ever, ever have believed it.
So it's been a pretty cool experience and, yeah, I love that when you're over here, like, you know, I'm recording this right now I mentioned to you before we hopped on the recording that I am recording it from my coworking space and at your coworking space, there's many of them in town and you just meet people that are all running their businesses, but it just happens to be here in Bali and I think that's so cool and one of the neatest things about the way that work is moving in, the way that people are getting so creative and resourceful is that you know, you have these opportunities, you can make them for yourself and just dove right in and not only will you stay afloat, but you'll actually be really successful, too. So it's been a super cool experience.
Matt It's awesome, so did you... Do you foresee yourself sticking around Bali for a while?
Charlotte Yes now, at this point, it feels very much like home. I even have kind of a routine like on Tuesdays I go to the same yoga class or so I, it feels like home now for sure. I will definitely, definitely, definitely be here until kind of like next summer, probably go back to Canada for a little bit in the summer. And then after that, though, I wouldn't be surprised if I come back most of my friends here are long-term they've all been living here for five or six years kind of thing. So I'm more of the newbie at only two years and so as much as you can find people that are more tourists like transient, there's also a really solid group of people here that are like long term and I have friends that are local as well who are just like the loveliest people. So, yeah, sticking around definitely for a while, that's for sure.
Matt That's awesome. What has been the, like, your favorite part of running your own business?
Charlotte Just the creativity that it offers, I would say that's the biggest one. Like if you have a project or an idea that you want to try out, you can just do it, right? Like you don't have to check in with the like a boss, you don't have to do a proposal, you don't have to like, you know, necessarily like prove the value or market research. It's just if something sparks your interest, you just go for it and get started.
And that, I think, has been the neatest thing about doing business, like, you know, I was thinking, oh, I want to do more than just build websites, I want to do consulting, and so I started offering that as a service and promoting it. And then you know, would you know it like people actually start booking it and, you know, you can grow it from there, your authority, or then two when I was thinking about, oh, I want to try building some digital products like you just try it like, oh, if something is interesting to you, like create the product and see what happens. And if it doesn't work out, then that's fine, you're only down like a little bit of time.
But the potential for you know both to have a creative outlet, but then also to be able to monetize your business that way is really, really cool, and same thing too you know you can like if I... If I want to say, oh, I want to run a video training or I want to do like a free workshop or something, just on a subject that interests me, you know whether or not it's directly related to the main services I offer, like, you know, I can do it like it's really, really fun that way. So I love that aspect about running a business. It's not all sunshine and rainbows, but that for sure sticks out to me as one of the top drivers.
Matt So what's maybe one of the biggest challenges?
Charlotte Like accounting 100 percent for me like I can say this, like I'm not the most organized person and then I end up having to be like, oh no, like mad scramble to get everything organized and yeah, I would say the admin and accounting side of business is for sure my biggest like weakness and it all gets done, it all gets taken care of, but like for some reason I just I don't know, I'd rather do almost anything than like track the expenses and all of that, like OK, I double-check all you know the payments or the use this month, log them in like that for sure is my least favorite and the part that I let slip more often than not.
Matt Do you think you'll always be a business owner or you could see yourself working for somebody?
Charlotte At this point, I, I think like I've been self-employed for, gosh, at least four years or something. And I really like, I really like being self-employed and working for myself. I do miss having kind of a team and colleagues and stuff, so I think that the only real way to get that would be if I decided to kind of grow my business into more of like a you know, like an agency size or something like that, which I don't know which right now is not something I'm interested in at all.
So I don't know, but like yeah I don't... at this point, I don't think that I would go back to working for someone. But I mean, you never know. Right? Like, if it was just an incredible opportunity and the price was right, then maybe. But that's another big thing, too, is that now, you know, often if you, if you work for yourself, the sky's the limit for how much money you can earn right? And like for sure, I am earning more now than I would be if I just had kind of like a regular job, so then I would take a pay cut if I got a regular job and that's not something I'm interested in either. So I don't know yeah, never say never, but unlikely.
Matt Right, right, right. Do you use any VA's or everything you do like everything within your business yourself?
Charlotte So I do most things, I do work with contractors on occasion for sure, so I guess more like a VA setting. That's one of my big goals actually and the thing that I'm working within the next couple of months is handing a lot more over to a regular VA, not just kind of people that I bring on as I need it. Instead, I'd like to have an ongoing relationship with someone that is like a big thing that I'm working towards.
It's interesting that it came up and it's been front of mind for me lately because for a while I was one hundred percent that business owner that was like, no one can do it better than me, I need to do everything and now I'm like, wait, no, I don't need to do it. Like, do I really want to set up, like, a funnel? Do I really want to do all of the kind of just the basic admin stuff? No, I'm not interested in it and it's not like my what do they call it, the zone of genius or something is that it?
And so I know what I'm good at and I want to spend more time doing those things that I am good at and that I enjoy and less time on the other. So that's a big learning curve for me is to move away from just like short project-based contractors and onto more of like having someone like a building a little bit of a team.
Matt Awesome. So what are you excited about within your business for the upcoming year?
Charlotte Oh, well, I'm excited for so one of the things that I'm excited for is that I'm going to be relaunching my course, which is Top Squarespace SEO. So the way that I have set up the course is that it's not evergreen, which means that it's not available for purchase all of the time. And instead, people like they can join the course during like launch periods that happen at certain points of the year, and that's just the way that I've made it available for purchase. You know, some people have it always up on their website, but for me, I'm like, no, it opens and closes.
So in a couple of weeks, I'm going to be relaunching that, which is really fun because it involves like a lot of moving parts, but there's an email marketing campaign that I go through, but then I also do a lot of free live video trainings with it, which is really kind of nerve-wracking, but also really fun because it's live video, right? Like if you are doing live video, you can interact with everyone that's watching and asking questions and go through things and really like engage with people. So that's something that I'm looking forward to as well.
And what else? Oh, I have a photography shoot set up like a brand like what does it get you branded photos for my website, which is coming up soon as well, which is pushing me majorly out of my comfort zone. But I'm looking forward to I'm not looking forward to doing it, but I'm looking forward to the final results.
Matt So does that will you be kind of rebranding your site with that, too?
Charlotte Yeah, so I'm keeping a lot of stuff similar, but yeah like with getting all these new photos and stuff taken, you know especially photos that are showcasing some of the digital products and everything like that, then being able to include those photos on the website will... will require some updates as well. But just kind of streamlining it, getting like nice clean photos that I can use around and but like I said, it pushes me out of my comfort zone like I am not you know like the thought of preparing and running for a full photoshoot like that is is a little daunting, but I know I'll be happy with the results. So it's something that I've been pushing off for a couple of months, but now I'm like, oh, Charlotte, rip off the Band-Aid, get it done. It'll be worth it.
Matt Right, that's awesome. So I mentioned how much I admire your email writing, I'm curious, how do you plan that content out? Do you... Is it like every week it's a new like you gotta figure it out OK we chat through that, I'm just really interested in this.
Charlotte Of course yeah OK, so my weekly... So I mentioned that every week on Wednesday I send out a newsletter right? And that newsletter is usually like I, I would say it's kind of like a story-based. So I start off and I like tell a story or explain something and then I look it back around to one of the services usually that I'm promoting. So that's kind of the structure of the Wednesday weekly emails and those ones I always write it within like a couple of days in advance you know and so those ones are all kind of like, you know, a treat it like it's almost like a journal or something, right, it's a way to talk to people, bring up something that's on my mind I can talk about, like an experience that just happened at the current event, whatever I'm feeling.
So people are reading it and they can be like, wow, I did see it on Instagram that you were in this place and now you're writing a story about it. That's cool, right? So that's what goes on with the weekly emails, they're all written within a couple of days before the before it's sent out on Wednesdays, but then in addition to that, I have email marketing campaigns that I do, so I mentioned earlier in this podcast about how I had just run a birthday flash sale, right? Or, you know, when I'm getting ready to launch my online relaunch my online course in a couple of weeks like those, those are much more like extensive email campaigns that I have pre-written out in advance.
Right? So those ones I'm sitting there with, like a Google doc writing out like 12 or 13 emails in the sequence that are going to be sent out to everyone and so those ones to me, those emails that are part of more of the like the campaigns, I would say? Those ones, I actually reuse them a lot, too, so once I've written it and I have them as my base, then let's say the next time I go to launch my course, like three or four months later, I actually just reuse the same emails like, yes, I might tweak them a little bit and update it, but mostly the foundation remains the same.
Matt And what platform do you distribute your emails through?
Charlotte I use Mailer Lite.
Matt Oh really? I don't even... I've never heard of that
Charlotte I feel like everyone in their path uses Convert Kit and I'm like, no, sorry, I'm still set up on Mailer Lite randomly, but it works for me and at this point, like, you know, to reset up all of the automations and all the categories and stuff into a different platform would be quite a big task. I mean, maybe if I get that VA and they can do it for me, but it works out well for me right now, so I'm not I don't really have a reason to switch.
Matt And what about... Have you worked with any of your clients that have used the Squarespace like native email that they've put in?
Charlotte Yes, I do. So I think that it is actually a really, really great feature that so many small businesses, in particular, can use because if you think about it if it's like a mom and pop store or like a small, small company or something, they might not have someone on their team who's really good at marketing and the easier you can make it for the for the person like the manager or whatever to do, then I am one hundred percent for it. So most of my clients do not use it I only had maybe like I'm thinking two or maybe three that actually use Squarespace's built-in one, but personally I love that that functionality is there because it kind of it gets rid of the barrier to entry, right?
Like now there's no excuse to not start an email list and not do not be building that up, send out newsletters to promote your business, your offerings, the content, whether you're like a blogger or something, whatever it is like I love that, that functionality is in there. And even in the last couple of months that a feature has been live, I've already seen them making a lot of product tweaks to it and improvements. So, yeah, I'm a big fan of it, I don't use it myself, my clients don't really use it either, but I love that is there.
Matt That's cool and I mean, it hasn't been around that long so it's not like...
Charlotte Oh, it's quite new yeah.
Matt So like the email service you're using. Did you say it's email lite? Is that what you said?
Charlotte Mailer Lite.
Matt Mailer Lite, so is that, does it have integration with Squarespace to get your sign-ups in like automatically.
Charlotte Um, well you do integrate it with Squarespace, yeah, you use mostly like float blocks. So let's say I'm using Mailer Lite and I create a form there and then for each form that I make, I just grab the code like the HTML the code or something and then in Squarespace on a page or a blog post, whatever, you insert a content block and you just do the code content block, like your text image, space or whatever, you just do the code block and then the form goes in that way. So it's super, super easy to do, yeah and you can customize it you can make whatever styling you want on it. So yeah, Malier Lite has been good for me.
Matt I got you, interesting, very cool!
Well, it's been so much fun chatting with you, I loved our conversation, your like energy is amazing. What should I ask you that I didn't ask you? Like you're like when you're preparing you're like... We should tell people like I don't ever share my questions prior? So this was all blind, so what should've I asked or what did you expect me to ask that I didn't, what did I miss on?
Charlotte Oh, one thing maybe I was thinking was like, have you had any flops in your business or any fails or anything that you tried that didn't work? That could be kind of a neat point, too, because I think we can often talk all about the good and we paint this amazing picture. But sometimes you're like, oh, no, real life is like it isn't without its hiccups I guess so that could be kind of a good question.
Matt So what is what would be your biggest flop?
Charlotte My biggest flop is, well, what would be my biggest flop, actually. This is an interesting thing I was... My biggest flop probably is, I have created a few digital products purely based on my own interest and without doing any market research and I spend a few hours or maybe a couple of days making them and then it just wasn't right for my audience, it wasn't right for what people were asking, they didn't really need it.
And so I worked on a couple of products that I created, put up on my website, sent out some emails about it, and then I really didn't get any significant sales from it. You know, maybe a couple, but not, not enough to even justify my hourly rate on the project, so that would be a flop, and it was purely in those cases just because I was like, oh, I feel like building this and then you realize like, oh, wait, no one actually wants it.
Matt Yeah, that's a bummer, but obviously, it didn't...
Charlotte So you don't owe anything really.
Matt Yeah, I mean, so let's talk about that. So then you've obviously your reaction wasn't OK, no more digital products because you're still building them. So what was your shift? What did you think like, OK, next time I'm going to do this.
Charlotte Yeah. So then I started thinking about like, OK, just because I felt like building this and I wanted to really set you know, you have to think instead about what do people want and what are they, what are they asking for right? So that's when you actually like step back and do a bit more market research and be like, oh, if I talked about something, people ask any follow-up questions or, you know, in the case of my online course, All About Squarespace SEO people, like my email is blowing up about that you know, so I know that there's demand for that topic.
So it's... I think in that case, it's a lot more about listening to people and actually yeah, focusing on your audience. What do they want? What are they interested in? What would they buy? And not just like what can I create just for the sake of it?
Matt Sure, it's awesome.
Charlotte And also a big point about that, too, is that in this case, like if you offer a service or if you are making a product or something and it doesn't sell, it's not like really it's not a big failure, all things considering right? Because you know if it doesn't work and you think, OK, maybe I don't need to sell this anymore, all you do is just take it off your website and don't sell it anymore. Or if the service no one's buying it, you're like, OK, I stop offering that service or I rebrand it or I find another way to market it or something right? So I think being resilient and not letting the like fail aspect take over is a really, really you know good point that I'm always reminding myself, every day you put your highs and your lows.
Matt Yeah, no, that's great and if you're thinking about, you know, I'm thinking a lot and, you know, most people in our situation where you know each of us are both running a business, it's both, you know I'd say for me, I know the majority of my revenue is all service-based, but it's going to be transitioning over to digital products.
Once you've kind of made that decision for scalability reasons and for automation reasons for like you mentioned, for just financially having products versus service-based products. Once you know, you're going that route, you are still learning stuff as you're building those products that can be applied to future products. It's not like it's all lost time if you're learning how to you know, if you're using, you know, like a course build or something and, you know, half that time was learning how to use the course builder. So the next time, next time you build a different course, you might actually know what you're doing, since now you know how to use the application that you built the course on. So it's, it's hard, it's difficult to justify like, well, was that a total loss or did I... are there skills that I'm going to be able to apply? That I make my, make my little shift here, make my adjustment to my next product so yeah.
Charlotte Exactly or how can you repurpose that content? Like maybe it didn't work well in the way that you packaged it up as a product, but instead, it could be a topic for a blog post, and, you know, you just kind of copy and paste a lot of it, reframe it or something or you can go out and if you do like blogs or, you know, I don't know anything else like that, how can you use the content in a different way that might make more of an impact?
Matt OK, here's a question for you. So you're in Bali, there are entrepreneurs that are working virtually and they're starting their business. Have you seen any that have come and they're like trying to live this like you know kind of digital nomad lifestyle and they show up and like, you know, like they're not going to cut it as like like they're not going to cut it. What like what did they not do that maybe they should have been doing? Like, how were you able to spot them? Like, Oh, no, this is a fraud, they're not this is this isn't going to work.
Charlotte Yeah, so the biggest thing is that they're actually just spending all their time on social media and no time on sales, without a doubt, without a doubt.
Matt That's awesome.
Charlotte You know, what are you doing? You're just spending literally like hours a day on Instagram, you're storing all this stuff that but you're never asking anyone to buy your product, you're never saying, here's the service I sell, you're not leaving anything and you're just creating content, but for no reason you know, like, you know, there's no point.
Like, let's say if you are trying to do digital marketing or something and then you just spend all your time on Instagram, like Instagram and cafes or something, I'm like, you're not trying to work with the cafe and get them to pay you to promote the cafe. So what like what are you doing here that's not actually serving you or it's not serving your business? So that's the thing.
I'm like, you're not asking for a sale ever, you're not sharing your services or your products, you're just sitting on social media all day long. That's one hundred, I see it, I see it, oh, my God Matt all the time here. It's unbelievable like there's certain cafes here that are just like insta famous, you know, it's what they call it and you'll see all these people and they are like: " Yo, yo, yo rise and shine today is gonna be the best day hustle get it, get it, get it" and I'm like quiet.
Matt That's great, that's hilarious. Oh, man awesome. OK, so what would be the best three pieces of advice you'd give to somebody like yourself five years ago if you were about to go on the adventure that you're that you've gone on like for somebody that's like, oh my God, this sounds amazing what Charlotte's done I wonder if I could do this.
What three pieces of advice would you give them?
Charlotte The first piece of advice is that... Just do it one hundred percent, like you can figure out a way someone has done it before you any problem that you have is fixable for sure, just do it, don't let the fear stop you, that would be the first piece of advice.
The second is to always, like, have a good attitude with whether it's your work or your personal life or whatever is going on, mindset is so important because especially when it comes to running a business or being an entrepreneur, there's going to be highs and lows or I like to say it like the rose in the thorn and like you can't have one without the other. So keeping a positive attitude is going to help you like whether those ups and downs.
And then the third one, the third one I guess like...
Matt Make sure you're selling something to make a little money.
Charlotte Yeah, I was going to say like if you have a business you have to ask for a sale you know because there's what do they say people need to hear it like seven times before they actually check out your offer. So you know hit people up on different platforms, whether that's on your website or on email or on social media or like in person at a networking event, like whatever it is, you have to be just shameless in the fact that you're like, I have a great product, I have an amazing service like check it out, let's work together, buy it.
You know, you have to use that like direct language and just don't be afraid because they might say no, but you need a bunch of no's in order to get a Yes. It's straight-up, when I started thinking about it as a numbers game, it like changed everything for me, I stopped taking rejection so personally as well and just being like, OK, well, you know, if I average ten no's, but then I get a yes like great.
Matt Yeah. No, that's awesome, that's really good advice.
Charlotte Focus on sales, focus on sales.
Matt Yeah. I was really lucky when I made my transition because I was in kind of a startup environment, the company grew to be a pretty good-sized company, but I was always involved in sales within that, it was a software technology-based software and I was always involved in sales. But like my numbers, like we always were crunching numbers on like just how bad we could be and still make a ton of money like our success rate had to be like point zero zero two percent. And like we could still make a ton of money. And like, when you start to figure that out where you're like, oh, like I don't need fifty percent of people to say yes, just like a few would go a long way. So yeah it's yeah, and backing into your numbers is huge.
Charlotte Yeah. If people can think about that then you know each No stops being so scary because you're like all right I know that like on average I need to get X number of no's in order to get a yes but all those Yes' are what you need to make good money, then you're like, oh that's fine. Whatever, like you don't mind doing the outreach, you don't mind doing the like pitching or whatever it is because, you know, it's straight-up just like it's not a matter of if someone will say yes, it's a matter of when.
Matt Yes, it's awesome, great advice, I love this. So it was so much fun connecting with you. Where can listeners hunt you down? Is that best to just go to your website or...
Charlotte That spot to go is my website, which is charlotteohara.ca and from my website you know, you can join my email list, which is really good, like you know Matt and I are just talking it up for no reason it's pretty fun for an email. You can join my email list and I'll show up in your inbox every Wednesday for a good email, I also have a pretty active YouTube channel as well that is all like tech tutorials and trainings and stuff like that, so don't be looking for any entrepreneur travel blogs, but if you want to learn real practical skills and you can check out the videos on YouTube channel and yeah, that's the best place to go by my website charlotteohara.ca and then you know play around from there.
Matt OK, and I'm just going to ask you this real quick before we go. What would you say, what would be your suggestion or pep talk to somebody that's like they want to start their own business and they, they're not doing it because they're worried about the expense and like their knowledge of website development, like what would you say to encourage them to like "Dude you can do it" like you can? Totally, yeah what would you say?
Charlotte You can do it oh, my gosh. Well, the biggest thing I would say is that the number is actually not that big like the cost we're talking about, you can get started for as low as what, like fifteen dollars a month or something if you use up from Squarespace and lucky for you, I have a free email course that literally tells you everything you need to know about building a website from scratch.
Matt Can I put that link? I'll put that link in the show notes, I'd be awesome,
Charlotte Definitely, we’ll put that in the show notes. It's called Launch Your Best Site, and it's a free email course that people can take that literally it's like, here's what you do: step one, step two, step three, step four, like do this, this, this and like resources and stuff. So if you're kind of like, oh, you've maybe, that's what's holding you back, that's not really a true excuse. Like get started, make a free trial, take my free course, build something, and then you can always improve it in the future.
Matt I love it, thank you so much, Charlotte, this was so much fun. I am so glad that we were able to connect.
Charlotte Me too, this has been a real pleasure, thank you for having me and I loved this conversation today.
Matt You got it, let's stay in touch.
Charlotte Good, see you.
Matt Hey guys, it's Matt again, hope you guys love that episode with Charlotte, she was killing it. I will link in the show notes to her Launch Your Best Website free course, which is awesome so you can learn how to design, build and launch your own Squarespace website. And that's it, thanks for listening and if you guys need anything, hit me up, bye-bye.
This episode was supported by findcourses.co.uk learn more about their online courses and tech tutorials and training here.
AFRICA - listener questions about my recent vacation to Kenya and Tanzania
The Goal Achievement Podcast, hosted by Productivity Expert Matt East, is all about helping you find clarity, design a plan, and most importantly achieve your goals.
Matt answers listener questions about his recent vacation to Africa.
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Africa, listener questions
Podcast Transcription
Welcome to the Goal Achievement podcast thank you so much for listening. My name is Matt East, I'm your host and on today's episode, we're going to talk all about a recent trip I took.
So I've received so many questions from you guys about this, probably 75 or so emails or LinkedIn notes or whatever, I mean, DM's so I've been asked a ton of questions about this trip and I'm just going to answer them in one fell swoop here.
I'm not going to go question by question, just kind of in general going to answer, you know, how is your trip? That's probably been half of them. Where did you go? Where did you stay? What did you do? So we'll knock some of those out.
So how was my trip?
The trip was absolutely amazing, Africa is just tremendous, it was... it was wonderful. We visited two countries, so we did Kenya and Tanzania, if you're unfamiliar, like Kenya, where we started is eastern Africa, kind of from north to south, pretty central, so like the center of the country, then the Far East, and that's where it's at, so Eastern Africa.
And so we started we stayed in Nairobi, so we flew from New York to Nairobi, I think that's about a 14-hour flight it was crazy. But yeah, Nairobi is the capital city in the largest city in Kenya. It's around four points three people or so in the actual city and nine or 10 million in the metropolitan area.
But wonderful, wonderful place, we had an absolute blast there, Rachel and I were... wanted to spend a couple of days there or a few days there prior to going on our safari, which is kind of what we really went for or we thought we were going and I say that because we ended up just like falling in love with the people, just I mean, the Kenyan people and Tanzanian people are unbelievable people, just absolutely unbelievable people and will definitely be returning for sure.
And... and the, you know, wildlife and sightseeing that we want to do on the safari did not disappoint at all, but man, the people just blew our minds, it was just amazing, amazing people.
So anyway, so stayed at a hotel called Uzur in Nairobi, it was amazing. We did the elephant orphanage there, there's a giraffe center, so I got the trip started off right, it was amazing, just amazing, amazing, amazing like food at our hotel and, and within the city there, just had a really, really amazing experience in Nairobi.
From Nairobi we started to drive and to the Masai Mara, which is the kind of the preserve or reserve, it's around 700 square miles and that's where you're able to see lions and leopards and cheetahs and elephants and wildebeest and gazelles and antelopes and all that good stuff, it's just an amazing, amazing place.
So we went to the Masai Mara, just incredible like drive there, so we drove from Nairobi to the Masai Mara and just I mean, just amazing like we start to pull up into the Masai Mara and there's just there's literally just like giraffes just right... right there. I mean, just unbelievable and lions and I mean, it's just crazy if you haven't experienced it, it's just absolutely mind-blowing, I can't really, I can't really describe.
So we spent, we spent what was probably four or five days in the Masai Mara, it was absolutely amazing. We stayed at let me look up where we stayed, we stayed at Julias River Camp, it was amazing, just really, really incredible.
And then after our time in the Masai Mara, we crossed over into the Serengeti, which is in Tanzania and that's even a much bigger park it's like 12000 square miles, which is crazy, crazy, crazy, big, and I think it's an actual national park and, you know, when you're there, you're able to see the wildebeest.
So there's wildebeest are making a migration, it's called the Great Migration, or they kind of do a circular migration that includes both the Masai Mara and the Serengeti, but it's tons of animals, tons of wildebeest, and, you know, zebras are kind of joining them and hanging out with them and Thompson gazelles are joining them, but it's something like one point seven million wildebeest are making this migration. I mean, so much that like I think our one of our guides told us that something like a quarter-million wildebeest die during that journey each year, which is insane, I'm just insane to think about the numbers, like when you're...
We didn't see, like, the Great Migration, like all of its glory, because you have to time it kind of perfectly and we were probably a little off on the timing, but we still saw part of it and you see, I mean, just thousands of animals at a time. I mean, just I mean, maybe hundreds of thousands, I mean, it's just absolutely mind-blowing, so just absolutely mind-blowing so, yeah.
So that was the Serengeti, we stayed... Let me see if I can look up where we stayed there, so yeah, we did the it was called Pemzeca Serengeti and I should mention we booked all of our travel through a company that I would highly recommend, it was called The Soul of Tanzania, that was an amazing company to work with, absolutely amazing company to work with, so I couldn't, like, recommend them more and yeah.
So from the Serengeti, we kind of ended, Part of the Serengeti is the Gawn Goro Crater, That's where we ended our trip and yeah, is just absolutely insane guys I mean, I can't really, I'm sure this is kind of boring to listen to, but you guys have asked a lot of questions about this.
So anyway, I hope I'm not boring you guys all to death, but yeah. So we went to Masai Mara in Kenya and then we went to the Serengeti in Tanzania and then we wrapped up our trip we went to Arusha, which is a major city in Tanzania and Tanzania was just beautiful I mean, just like absolutely beautiful I definitely will be going back to both Kenya and Tanzania, but, man, it was just beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Both countries are beautiful, I didn't mean to say one was more beautiful than another, absolutely beautiful.
But yeah, from Arusha, we flew to do some scuba diving, so we wanted to dive for a few days so we went to Zanzibar and dove at through a company called what was it, Buccaneer Diving in Zanzibar is just absolutely amazing, Buccaneer Diving man if you are a scuba diver, check that place out, it's just a mind-blowing reef there just absolutely spectacular diving, if you're a diver, it just, you know, I don't know how to describe it.
It's really interesting there, there's a really, really big I don't know if that's the right word. There's a really significant high, high tide, and low tide, so the tide really goes back like, you know, I've been in Florida a lot in California and it seems like the tides are like not that significant, but there every day we were there, it's like a mile tide, maybe like it was insane, but yeah.
So and I only mention that because if you're a diver, the scheduling is like very strict, and usually, when you go into a dive shop, it's like super chill, and there they were like, yeah, we'll be leaving at one thirty - two tomorrow, which is a weird thing for a dive shop to say so anyway.
But yeah, I mean Zanzibar like the water so it's the Indian Ocean is surrounding you and it was just like perfectly clear water, it was mind-blowing. And I've definitely been to the Caribbean a bunch and South American to the Keys and that water was just like absolutely mind-blowing compared to everything else I'd seen.
So anyway, I hope that gives you an idea, I can't believe I just talked about that for ten minutes somehow. Yeah, I hope that gives you an idea about how the trip was and answers some questions for you, and yeah, that's it, man.
If you have any specific questions, let me know if you're actually planning a trip and you have like serious questions then just send those very specific questions and I'll just answer those one-off via email send those via email if you do Matt@Matt-East.com is my email.
That's it, guys, hope that helps. I'm going to be on a much more regular cadence with the podcast here in the coming months. So I'm back in Indy for a while and really excited to dive back in and that's it. Uh, chat soon bye-bye.
David Allen on Productivity and Getting Things Done
The Goal Achievement Podcast, hosted by Productivity Expert Matt East, is all about helping you find clarity, design a plan, and most importantly achieve your goals.
David Allen discusses his latest book “The Getting Things Done Workbook: 10 Moves to Stress-Free Productivity”.
David Allen is one of the world’s most influential thinkers on productivity, he has 35 years of experience as a management consultant and executive coach. David’s bestselling book, the groundbreaking Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, has been published in thirty languages, TIME magazine called it as “the defining self-help business book of its time.” The “GTD” methodology it describes has become a global phenomenon, being taught by training companies in 60 countries. David, his company, and his partners are dedicated to teaching people how to stay relaxed and productive in our fast-paced world.
Shownotes:
Learn more about GTD
David Allen on Twitter @gtdguy
David Allen on The Goal Achievement Podcast
Podcast Transcription
Hey, guys, it's Matt. I hope you're all doing really, really well.
I know I owe a lot of listeners out there responses to listener questions. I've been asked a ton about the trip to Africa, so I'm going to do a full episode on that, but I'm just now getting back into the swing of things and I did an interview with David Allen on the Better Humans podcast, so I'm going to post it here for you guys to listen to.
But I promise I'm going to post an episode about the Africa trip and answer all your questions and it was amazing, by the way. But yeah, I want to share this interview I did with David Allen for the Better Humans podcast and I will record a specific new episode of the Goal Achievement podcast really, really, really soon, most likely over this weekend.
So that's it, guys. Hope you're all doing awesome and I can't wait to record that episode and connect with you guys, bye-bye.
Hey, guys, welcome to the Better Humans podcast. Thank you so much for joining me, I hope they're all doing really well. My name is Matt East, I'm your host, and I am recently back from a few weeks of being in Africa. So I was there on vacation just relaxing with Rachel and with some other family members, it was amazing. And if you want to hear more about that, I'm going to be sharing some details about that trip because I've been asked about it a bunch from not only listeners of this show, but mostly from the Goal Achievement podcast.
So that's my other podcast and if you're interested in and that trip, you want... if you're thinking of going to Africa or you're just curious I'm going to be sharing some details about that trip on my other podcast. So the Goal Achievement podcast, check it out I'll be releasing that episode in the next few days and Africa is amazing it was just tremendous. So, yeah, check that out in the next few days.
But on today's show, I get the opportunity to connect with the amazing David Allen. So if you're unfamiliar with David's work, David Allen is one of the world's most influential thinkers on productivity. He has over 35 years of experience as a management consultant and executive coach and his best-selling book, I'm sure many of you have read it in or at least heard of it, it's... It was really groundbreaking when it was originally published, it's called Getting Things Done The Art of Stress-Free Productivity and it's been published in over 30 languages, which is insane, and Time magazine calls it the defining self-help book of its time and getting things done is often referred to as GTD, so the GTD methodology, it's really become a global phenomenon and it's been taught by training companies in over 60 countries.
So David and his company and his partners are dedicated to teaching people how to stay relaxed and productive in our fast-paced world and I was given the opportunity to connect with David because he recently published an article for better humans, it's called How to Do a GTD Mine Sweep, and he did it in support of his most recent book, which is called The Getting Things Done workbook, which enhances the original by providing an accessible guide to the GTD methodology in a workbook form, definitely check it out.
And I hope you guys love this interview with David I just really think highly of him and if you haven't ever read Getting Things Done, definitely, definitely. Check it out. So here's my interview with David Allen I hope you guys love this one let me know what you think bye-bye.
Matt Welcome to the podcast, David, thank you so much for joining me. How are you doing?
David I'm terrific, Matt. Thanks for the invitation.
Matt Yeah, this is exciting for me I've followed your work forever, I'm a huge GTD fan, so I can't wait to get into this. So you recently published the Getting Things Done workbook I know this is something your... your audience has wanted for a long time, it's a practical step by step how-to guide that supplements, getting things done by providing details, the how-tos, and the practices to apply GTD more fully and easily in daily life.
So I've got to ask, what inspired the release of the workbook, David?
David Well, frankly, Matt, the... the Getting Things Done book itself, first Edition 2001, the new edition to 2015 is really daunting for a lot of people.
Matt Oh yeah.
David I didn't hold back, I didn't write it as a training tool, I wrote it as a manual, basically to catalog all of the best learnings and best practices that I uncovered, researched, tested, implemented with thousands of people over you know 2, 20, 30 years and I just put it all in there I didn't hold back so...
So because it's so daunting, I'm not a really good instructional designer, I'm not even a very good trainer, I'm a good presenter. But, you know, I can present and get people sort of engaged and hypnotized and motivated, but they walk out and don't do anything.
So you know, I've had to sort of listen to the experts in terms of behavior change, which is not my area of expertise. You know, I figured out the model, but I didn't figure out how to make it stick and how to get people to actually do it, even though it's simple to do, and so over all these years, we've just discovered a lot of people either are too daunted by the book just because it looks like a lot to do.
It's actually... it's actually not if you kind of follow instructions, pretty simple stuff, but it can certainly seem that way and so building a little more, lowering the barrier of entry for people to actually play, and the workbook is not really stepping down the methodology so much as it's giving people the real step by step you know, 10 moves essentially...
Hey do this move, it'll get you started to do this next move, it'll you know, you'll be on the right path and it really kind of takes people by the hand and makes it much easier, I think, for people to engage, that was the reason.
Matt Yeah, it's fantastic, as I already mentioned on the show, I know I mentioned to you in the preview as we were just talking that I'm a big GTD fan and but this is perfect. I've definitely recommended the book to probably almost hundreds of clients of mine, and there have been some that have felt overwhelmed by it and it seems like this would be a perfect spot for them to start with, as may be opposed to the actual the actual book.
Is that kind of who you thought would be perfect for?
David Yeah, it... I mean, frankly, the jury's out. I didn't know whether this kind of a thing would work, the only you know, I just know that you know, there have been some some some models that have worked really well, like the seven habits workbook, you know, after Stephen Covey's book and quite a number of other books that have done that and that have done very well.
So my publisher, Penguin, thought it would be a good idea and Brandon Hall, who's my co-author, who did a good bit of the heavy lifting, is an expert in e-learning, an expert in and sort of the learning curriculum itself and he showed up and sort of yank my chain he said, "David, really, we really ought to do a workbook."
And so I said, OK, a little bit kicking and screaming, because I hate to sort of step down the methodology, because the whole methodology is really quite a holistic model. And, you know, I never really wanted to do anything but give everybody the whole picture, live and learn.
Matt And now so in prepping for this interview, I read a quote from an article that was published in Fast Company where they interviewed you a few years back and there's a quote and you say:
"People assume that I'm hardworking, left brained, results oriented OCD, anal retentive kind of guy. In fact, the reason that I was attracted to this work was that it allowed me to be more creative, more spontaneous, freer, I'm a freedom guy".
And that's the end of the quote and I'm definitely a freedom guy, too. So I that quote kind of drew me in, but I'm interested.
What does it mean to you to be a freedom guy? And do you think that that surprises a lot of people?
David I think it probably does, I mean, especially the first edition of the book with me in a suit and tie on this cover and it was kind of targeted for the fast track professional in the corporate world because those are the majority of the clients over the last thirty years that kind of bought into what I was doing, they were the... they were the first people to experience this tsunami of email and overwhelm of digital, the digital world that was bringing to them and so they were and they were the... the hungriest and ripest audience, essentially.
So, you know, it was kind of targeted into that into that world but when people would meet me, they go, oh, God, you're nothing like what I thought you would be because I'm you know, I'm going to hang out kind of Lucy Goosey kind of guy, not a not a naturally organized guy, everybody thinks that I would be but, you know, I really you know, I guess I got into it you can say efficient as opposed to efficient and lazy to me are kind of synonymous you know, it's like I hate having to do extra work, I hate having to have thoughts twice, I hate having to redo things, I hate being distracted by stuff I can't finish when I think of it.
And so, you know, so my freedom is it can get a little subtle you know, I like... I like, you know, I've set it set it up so my you know, my own personal systems are set up so I never have to have a thought twice or rethink anything the same way twice. So that's... that's lazy, most people keep thinking, rethinking the same stuff over and over and over without making any progress or what they're thinking about, and that's a big waste of time and a huge, huge, huge pain in the butt.
So so that's you know, I sort of fell in love with empty space and clear space and, you know, and very much like, you know, the French chefs that say Mison plus, you know, before the French chefs start their evening meal, they make sure every single ingredient is ready, every single pot and pan is ready and the kitchen is spotless and ready to go because, you know, it's going to get crazy and so you have to, you know, as I say, your most creative when you have the freedom to make a mess, the problem is if you're in a mess, you can't make one.
So I discovered years ago that it's really nice to clean up so then you can you know, then you can have the freedom to get crazy then clean up again and get crazy again, so that's that's kind of more of my lifestyle. And I think I think most people can sort of relate to that as like to do any kind of like cooking or playing music or painting or... or anything. It's kind of like you need to kind of get your get all your stuff ready that gives you, you know, get the right gear, get the right costume, get the right stuff out, you know, so you can then you can enjoy the thing itself and the and the and the art of the craft itself.
Matt Yeah you mentioned space in there though just the word space and getting things done is, you know, it's often mistakenly thought of as a time management system and I've always thought of it more as like a workflow management system.
But I heard you reference it as I was prepping for this as more of a space management system. Does that still resonate with you or would you?
David Absolutely, no, I mean, how much time does it take to have a good idea? You know, zero. How much time does it take to be creative? Zero. How much time does it take to be present and loving with your kids and cooking spaghetti? zero, those things...
And yet most people would consider those kinds of the golden goodies, you know, being creative, being present, being strategic, being whatever and those don't require, they don't require time, they require space, they require a room in your head, in your psyche.
If you're wrapped around a meeting you had at two o'clock in the afternoon and it's six o'clock at night and you're still worried about what happened or what you're going to do about it or whatever it's hard to be present cooking spaghetti or tucking your kids into bed.
And so the whole thing is about what do you need to do to get stuff off your mind, which gives you then the room to use your mind for what it's really good for, which is, you know, accessing your intuitive intelligence, you want to make good decisions about your options. But as the cognitive scientists have figured out in the last ten or fifteen years and a lot of research basically I discovered 30 years ago, plus was that your head's just a crappy office.
And your head is for having ideas, but it's a terrible place to hold onto them, your brain did not evolve to remember and prioritize or manage relationships between more than four things. As soon as you try to attract more than four things just in your head, you're going to sub-optimize your cognitive process and they've now proven that.
Matt Well, you know, GTD can consist of five basic steps, as I see it, which is capture, clarify, organize, reflect and engage and capturing is a huge part of that and if you can work that stuff out of your head so you can actually use your brain to think instead of remembering, you're well on your way, huh?
David Exactly, you got it.
Matt And so we mentioned earlier kind of your quote about freedom, you're a freedom guy and part of that freedom was making a big move so you moved overseas to Amsterdam, right?
David Yeah and from where I'm speaking from right now yeah.
Matt Yeah, and from that, you moved from the United States.
What kind of inspired that move?
David Well, my wife and I don't have kids and we wanted a kind of a new adventure in our life. It was time for that and we looked at people slightly older than we were that looked a little more sedentary than we thought we'd be comfortable doing and we both have good health and good energy and we saw, you know, time for another adventure and so we and we wanted to get out of the US.
The US is very US-centric in its thinking, and we thought of ourselves always as kind of more global people and our my work and our work and the GTD work now spreading around the world is more of a global event and so we wanted to move out somewhere, you know, and could have been pretty much anywhere as long as I'm near an airport, given the work that I do and our work, was becoming much more virtual so it kind of didn't matter where we were.
But we loved Europe and we'd been to Amsterdam a couple of times before, but it could have been anywhere over here. But Amsterdam is just so great and once we were here, we just totally fell in love, even more so with it, and decided to stick around.
Matt So how long have you lived there now?
David Five years over... over five years.
Matt And you still own any property in the US or you just made the jump?
David No, no we got rid of we sold our office building, we sold our house, we gave away or sold everything. We had essentially lightened our footprint and sort of moved our center of gravity over here.
Matt Has that move been like better than expected? What you expected? Or more challenging than you expected? I mean, that's a big move
David All the above all, you know, it's things always are more complicated than you think. That's OK and there are a lot of hidden treasures in it and the process, so it was kind of all of that. But no, it was great just another project hey, moved to Amsterdam and yeah so, you know, there was a lot involved in it But it was good at it you know, I think, I think you need to do those kinds of things every once in a while, just kind of shake it up.
You know, to see things from totally different and a different perspective so it's been... it's been great and we love it. The lifestyle here is very much to our liking, the quality of life is really cool, it's a very outdoor place, people are out with their kids and their dogs and it's, and we haven't had a car since we've been here.
My wife and I both have two bicycles and, you know, it's a real bike place and... and, you know, there's just more art and music and culture here within, you know, within ten square miles and you can shake a stick at or ever take advantage of, so it's you know, it's and it's much more the center of my world than Santa Barbara was I mean, come on, California, Santa Barbara was great, though it's all kind of frying up out there now, you know.
But... But this is much more you know, I'm three hours from Moscow, an hour and a half from Milan, I'm forty-five minutes from London, you know, so this is really, really a very central place, given the work we're doing and where we like to go.
Matt What percentage of the year at this point do you have to travel for presentations and for your... for your work?
David Oh, it's Matt it just it's so ad hoc, sometimes I'm really kind of wall to wall sometimes, you know, I just did a global summit of GTD here in Amsterdam in June, which is a major two-year project and so I'm kind of... kind of decompressing from all that so I've been a little bit of a hiatus to have to travel much since then.
But, you know, upcoming, I've got two trips to Kiev in the Ukraine, I've got a master class I'm giving in Moscow, I have a... I'm going to Israel for a week we have a new licensee there, I'll be in Cyprus and we have a new licensee there and in the spring. So still moving around mostly supporting the you know, we have we have a whole process of licensing people, exclusive distributors of the GTD, training, and coaching now around the world.
And a lot of what I've been doing for the last two or three years has been supporting sort of our new partners in that regard and traveling to where they're doing and doing press and making sure people see these are the people we have certified, as you know, as master trainers of our work.
Matt Outstanding. So where's the best place for listeners to hunt you down at work and where should we send them?
David Well, our website gettingthingsdone.com you'll see an overview of what we're doing most of our work now, I'm not doing, I do sort of random keynotes and random things myself. But for the most part, we've now partnered with people delivering our trainings both publicly and as well as in-house.
And so we have if you go to our site and see, look under our partners, you'll see all over the world where we have partners that are delivering our trainings and our coaching. So in the US, we've partnered with Vital Smarts, a really great company out of that, sort of made their mark doing crucial conversations and... and doing that, and they wanted to add some more intellectual property to their portfolio, and so we met up with them and they were they're great folks. And so, you know, we've... we've sort of handed off to the US and Canada anyway, all of our trainings to them. So you'll see connections to all of that, you know, on our site, as well as some overviews of the methodology itself.
Matt When you originally published Getting Things Done, were you surprised at how aggressively it was adopted by people, or did you assume it would be or what was your expectation?
David Well, it was kind of a slow burn and, you know, I over all, over all these years, I've developed a kind of an approach which really works for me, which is high anticipation and no expectation. So, you know, I kind of like, well, I don't know, I just needed to write the book, I needed to get out of myself and get it into a manual in case I fell over, got run over by a bus at least, at least that had been captured.
I mean, it took me twenty-five years now to figure out what I'd figure it out and that it was unique and that nobody else could have done it and that it was bulletproof, and that no matter how much or to whatever degree anybody implements any of it, it improves their condition. And so I said, you know, that would be kind of selfish to hold it back.
And so I just wrote that I wrote the thing just to get it out there I had no idea what the uptake would be and it was a bit of a slow burn. You know, it started out pretty well, but it... it then started to get a lot of traction as it was spread around, that is as it got translated into all the different languages around the world.
Matt I mean it has to be meaningful sorry to cut you off, has to be meaningful for you to I mean, I was just reading some of the reviews and people are just so like, you know, I mean, people say it changed my life like one in five people are just like me and this completely changed my life and I mean, that has to be really rewarding for you.
David Oh, it's fabulous. Are you kidding? I mean, I've been really graced you know been blessed to have stumbled across something. Of course, you know, I paid my dues and it took me you know, I had thirty-five jobs by the time I was thirty-five, didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up and sort of fumbled around and trying to find what was my niche, what was the thing that I can do that was unique and valuable for people.
And, and I... you know, I love helping people and educating people and being of service in a way so, so wonderful to actually have now created essentially a career and a whole lifestyle based upon something that, again, you know, it's not like running with scissors. It's, it's very good stuff and it's easy for people to do and it improves anybody's condition who does it. So you have a little chart of how many people every month are getting... lives are getting impacted by going through trainings and so forth, and it's just wonderful to have sort of wound up being able to do that.
Matt Awesome. So it looked like from my research, you can get this workbook pretty much any place where you shop for books. I mean, it's out there.
David Yeah, I think so and all, all the good. You know, I always like to champion local bookstores, you know, so anybody if you have a local bookstore, it's always great to support them. If not, you can always do the Amazon, you know, stuff if you can find it all there.
Matt All right, David, this is great, guys, if you've ever thought about implementing the GTD methodology, this is a great place to... to start or to enhance what the actual GTD book. So go check it out, buy it at your local bookstore.
Thank you so much, David, this was really fun for me, I've really admired your work from afar for a long time, and it was really fun to connect and pick your brain for a few minutes.
David Yeah, thanks Matt my pleasure, it was fun.
Matt You got it. Bye-bye.
Hey, guys, it's Matt again hope you loved that interview with David, he's a very thoughtful guy and a very smart guy, loved doing that interview with him, so hope you guys enjoyed it too, and give me a shout if you guys need anything. And like I mentioned, I'll be recording an episode full of listener questions really, really soon.
So thanks again guys and bye-bye.
Listener Question: How do I choose my top priorities?
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Shownotes:
Matt responds to a listener question with 10 tips for prioritizing your day.
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Listener Question: How do I choose my top priorities?
Podcast Transcription
This is Episode one hundred and two.
Welcome to the Goal Achievement podcast, thank you so much for joining me, hope you're all doing really well. Just a few things to update you guys and then we have a great listener question.
So I mentioned I was going to have a great guest on the podcast this week, but she had to reschedule, so we're going to do that when I return from my trip. And you... I've Had a lot of you guys email me about my trip I mentioned on the last episode, I think I just said I'm going to Africa and people I've asked have asked me a little bit about that.
So I actually get asked a lot if I'm going to be hunting, I'm not hunting, we are going on a safari, but we'll just be taking pictures, no hunting. And we're going to Tanzania, Kenya, and... and then we're going to scuba dive in Zanzibar, so it's going to be bananas and I wanted to give you guys a heads up that I'm not planning to publish any new episodes during the time that I'm gone, so that'll be a few weeks.
So no new episodes after today for a few weeks at least I'm not planning any, I could actually do one or two if I have Internet connectivity, but I'm not planning on it. So, so, yeah, that's it.
I have a great listener question so let's get to that.
Matt, I follow you on Twitter and love that you share your top three priorities, I've been trying to figure mine out each day, but sometimes I struggle with it. Any advice?
And yes, I do have advice. I've been mentioning that I'm writing a book and I have a list of questions from the book that can help you set your priorities. So I always talk about definitely want to set your top three and I actually then encourage you to get those top three onto your calendar so you actually associate a time with them.
So it's not just something that you're hoping to do, but you actually haven't blocked off so you can knock those out. But I use these ten questions for my clients a ton and I use them in my own life, so I've... I've come up with this list and here they are, so if you're struggling, use these ... use these questions, it'll help you out a ton and let me know what you think, I'll also email these to you, the person that sent this... So you don't have to, like, write these down or whatever, but. All right, here we go:
So the first question is, so if I could... Ask yourself this: If I could only achieve one thing today, what would that be? That's a good starting point.
Second question is: What's the second most important thing I need to do today?
Third is... Third question is: What other tasks need to be completed today? So that knocks out your top three or hopefully does if you're kind of struggling.
These other six questions are good ones to get you thinking...
And the fourth question is: What could I complete today that would make me happy when reflecting on my day? You know, towards the end of the day, what... What would you what would make you happy is your reflecting back on your day.
The fifth question is: What should I not do today? Woo hoo hoo, that's a big one. Why should I not do today? So is there stuff you're thinking you should be doing that maybe you shouldn't do at all or you should consider not doing this?
Sixth question is: Are there projects or tasks that other people own? And you should follow up on them today? So are there projects or tasks that you don't own? Other people do, but you need to follow up on them to kind of check-in, it's a good reminder.
Seventh question is: What key relationships in my life need my energy today? So sometimes you need to prioritize those key relationships and block time for those, so that's the seventh question, what key relationships in my life need my energy today? It's a great reminder.
Question eight: What can I complete that would remove stress from my life? So is there something in your life that's stressing me out? You need to knock it out, that's a great place, that's a great thing to prioritize, and then knock off your list and remove that stress.
Number nine is: What tasks can I delegate to someone else today? That's a good one, huh? What task can I delegate to someone else today?
And the last question, number ten is: Is there a task I'm avoiding? If so, why? So is there something you're avoiding? If so, why? And do you need to knock it out? Knock it out?
So those are the ten questions that I think about all the time I recommend to my clients. I hope that helps you out. I will like I said, the person that emailed this question, I'll shoot you an email back with these, but I wanted to share them on the podcast as well.
As I'm gone over the next few weeks still send in your questions and we'll get to answer those when I come back, so keep them coming.
Thank you very much for this question, that's a great question.
And that's it, guys. Have a great, great next few weeks and we'll chat when I get back.
Bye-bye.