Watch Charlotte, Rhonda, Scott, & Shema Get Help
Watch Charlotte, Rhonda, Scott, & Shema Get Help
Dane:
Hey guys, and welcome to season three. Start From Zero.
Speaker 2:
Thumbs up, let's do this. (singing)
Dane:
You're about to watch multiple people at a time get coached on how to start a business from zero. Some people need emotional support. They're overwhelmed and they've had past failures. Some need strategy. They're beating their head against the wall. Some need tactics. They want to know what to say or do. These episodes are unique. They're vulnerable. They're weird. Many times, people come to me with a question but they need something entirely different.
Dane:
In these episodes, you'll see me combine my 15 or so years of business experience with a little intuition and mindset training to help shape these folks into powerful and confident entrepreneurs. Now we've had 15 millionaire students and counting, so we know this stuff works. Now, make sure you're sending these folks love while you listen because that stuff matters. We're becoming more sensitive as a society, and we can feel these things even if we don't know it.
Dane:
Let's get to the episode. Welcome to this call. We have some wonderful folks joining us, Charlotte, Rhonda, Scott, and Shema. Charlotte, let's start with you. What is your big goal for this call?
Charlotte:
I would love to confirm with you my customer, pain solution of flow.
Dane:
Beautiful. And Rhonda, what's your big goal for this call?
Rhonda:
The part of my business, I guess, that I should be focusing on and which social media platform I should be concentrating on to do that.
Dane:
Okay. That'll work for now. Shema, how about you?
Shema:
I'm trying to find a way to get more leads for my software and I just had to get to know and talk with these clients, because I've been doing things here and there but they haven't been obviously got me out so far.
Dane:
Beautiful. That sounds like an exciting one, me being in the software world. Then Scott, how about you man?
Scott:
I was actually inspired from another episode of the podcast and I want to create a business that caters to musicians and across community, it's like a market to them but it doesn't matter how to monetize their business and make it more marketable. And I want to scale it quickly and monetize it quickly but I'm a little concerned that it's going to take a long time to build up to our grounds [inaudible 00:02:45] to make it profitable.
Scott:
So that's where I could use help just getting it to move fast.
Dane:
Which podcast inspired you to want to help musicians make money?
Scott:
I think it's number nine, Annika. Annika learns to break the barrier of trading time for money, something like that.
Dane:
What about that episode sparked that, I'm just curious?
Scott:
It was just exactly what I wanted to hear I just didn't know it. She said that she has the idea of how to take care of business owners and that that don't really take care of themselves and really reminding them to drink water and eat or that kind of thing. Then, you said, "I don't know if that's really profitable but you can do that and you can build your list."
Scott:
Then eventually, once it gets to a point, you can start marketing to those people and selling them courses on medication, things like that. Someone's like, "Oh, this sounds like becoming a world I live in with my current business, where I could just do the thinking with musicians like, making sure they're taking care of themselves and then offer courses and solutions to their problems because I think that a lot of the musicians that we employ don't realize that they have a small business." So they're just missing huge part of our marketing about how to manage their finances, about how to hit their goals, all these things.
Scott:
And I'd want to create a course in the system that takes care of them so that they can flourish.
Dane:
That's nice. I've got this other book that I started writing and it's called, Easy Money, Hard Money. 50 millionaires reveal their easiest and hardest times making money. And I'm doing it for myself and others just so we can break that belief that making money needs to be difficult, slow and hard. So I'm asking really smart millionaires that I can find, one is making money easy and one was making money hard and very fascinating.
Dane:
One of the gentlemen said that making money was really easy when he had momentum with something and making money was really hard when he was starting from standstill. And just that alone is so insightful. It's, if you're starting at a standstill and you're like, "Why does everyone else make it seem like it's so easy?"
Dane:
Well, they've probably got a lot of momentum that you don't have because you're just starting out. Yeah, that makes sense. And you actually have momentum because you're already in the industry, you already have these clients, whose built-in momentum was what you're working on. That's a good sign.
Dane:
Can you just say what your business is for everybody again real quick and myself?
Scott:
I own a company called Priority Brands [inaudible 00:05:10], but it's currently called Luxury Entertainment Group. We do private events for social and corporate clients. So it could be a wedding, it could be some sort of small gathering or corporate just pretty self-explanatory. So we take bands and DJs and we put them [crosstalk 00:05:25] our events.
Dane:
That's good enough.
Scott:
Yeah, okay.
Dane:
So for your process, I would just apply the book, the Start From Zero book to it. So you'll ask your every musician that you've ever booked, ask him the five-question process, what's your most present problem, how are you trying to solve it, what happens if you don't solve it, what's your magic wand solution to this problem and would that be worth paying for? How much?
Dane:
Go to every one of your artists you've worked with, how many has it been?
Scott:
We have a roster of a couple of hundred.
Dane:
So if you're [crosstalk 00:05:54], it's going to be a fun time, fun little [inaudible 00:05:56] stuff.
Scott:
Yeah, for sure.
Dane:
After you've done about 25 or 30, but if you're not too confused because it might be all going in different directions, you might start to see a few patterns emerge. In those patterns will be the sources of your first course that you can then offer. But ideally, you'll find that, or whatever it is they are saying, whatever the solution is, people first, problem second, find the problem, sell it third, get the buy-in then go to work making that product with them, get results with them, whatever it is and then use those results as stories to scale forward.
Scott:
Got it. Got it.
Dane:
You'll be having a blast doing that, because you won't be bringing any of your own preconceived agendas to the table, you won't be trying to overcomplicate any of this, you won't be trying to overcompensate and make something more fantastic than it needs to be because you'll just be belly to belly and heart to hear with musicians or what their present problems are and what their dream solutions will be.
Dane:
So you're assignment, I'm going to give you an assignment and I'm going to move on to the next person and then I'll come back at the end to this call and see how you did. I'd like you to write down what your initial email would be to these folks that would set up the phone call with them. So you can write that in the meantime.
Dane:
Let's go to Charlotte. You're CPSO, your customer, pain, solution, offer, what is that?
Charlotte:
It's a business I'm planning to launch by year-end, which is called [inaudible 00:07:22] One Live and it will be a credit coaching and digital contacts business. In turn to start with private coaching, most of the time moving to online class and E books and potentially all that. The overall purpose is to empower professionals to design intentional and regret-free-
Dane:
Let's do this-
Charlotte:
Yes?
Dane:
Let's see if we can build the business [maven 00:07:52] brain. Say customer, pain, solution and offer and articulate each one in a sentence or two.
Charlotte:
Customer would be professionals, probably late 30s, early 40s who are stuck in a professional or personal task that's not aligned with who they really are or ones that doesn't regret to them. Often they're [inaudible 00:08:20], they're stressed, overwhelmed, fatigued and they don't really enjoy the lives they have worked hard to build.
Dane:
That's really well said and we got it recorded too. I've got a few other people on these shows that say they have a similar target market. People that are unfulfilled in their career but none of them have stated it as powerfully as you have already.
Charlotte:
Good.
Dane:
In my opinion. They'll probably listen and probably be able to take some of these ideas to help themselves. You'd talked about the customer and the pain, what's the solution?
Charlotte:
Solution would be in stage one, private coaching.
Dane:
That's not a solution. What would the private coaching get them? What's the solution?
Charlotte:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). It would be to redesign the right paths intentionally, in alignment with their authentic self and their whole definitions of success and happiness.
Dane:
This is fantastic. This is fantastic. I wish all of my-
Charlotte:
That makes me happy to hear.
Dane:
Yeah, I wish that all my calls were this easy. No, I actually I don't. I want the challenge. It's like, let's do four of five people at a time. How many can you do until your brain breaks, Dane? I love this and I was even going to stop you and say, well, don't even think about it as coaching. The solution is, redefine their lives intentionally in a way that's aligned to their authentic self.
Dane:
See how I remembered it?
Charlotte:
Yeah.
Dane:
That's because of you saying it. The solution is that they redesign their life intentionally ... If you'd like to get a free one-on-one with me and be on this show, you can find out details @startfromzero.com/podcast ... Based on alignment with their authentic self. They could probably give a rat's hoot, whether it was done through coaching, whether it was done through a course, whether it was done through an iPhone app, whether it was done through a book, whether it was done through a software, whether it was done through a YouTube channel, whether it was done through a Facebook group, whether it was done through an email course, they probably don't care.
Charlotte:
That's right. Yeah.
Dane:
So they probably don't even care that it's coaching. When you mentioned coaching, unfortunately they probably hear work. Oh, there's going to be a lot of work involved.
Charlotte:
Yeah.
Dane:
Oh coaching, oh God. But if you have the solution is, redefine your life intentionally aligned to your authentic self. And we do this and three breakout calls and we do this as a group. You get to see yours and you get to see other people's processes to learn from their examples as well. No coaching was mentioned, so nowhere in the unconscious are they going to be like, "Oh, work." And we just converted your one on one coaching program to a group one, if it wasn't already.
Charlotte:
That's amazing because I was thinking of building online circles, more than a private LinkedIn group, more online circles where I could-
Dane:
What's the offer? Customer, pain, solution, offer?
Charlotte:
Well, my initial offer was, four months, $2,500.
Dane:
Great. And do you have these leads anywhere, these customers already in your field?
Charlotte:
Yeah. Through my network and I have a corporate background for 15 years and a business school academic background, so I have a network of professionals which is across industries that I can tap into.
Dane:
I want you to close your eyes for a moment and I want you to picture a group of these people and everybody else, please follow along. If you're listening on the road or the car, don't close your eyes, but picture an audience of people that are unfulfilled in a life that they worked hard to build.
Dane:
By the way, it'd be a good headline. It even has a rhyming in it. Are you unfulfilled in a life that you've worked hard to build?
Charlotte:
Yeah.
Dane:
Ooph. And those were your words. Now, I want you to picture that group of people and I want you to feel the silent, secret hopelessness that they have that can never exit or escape what they've built. And I want you to stay there and feel the hopelessness as long as you can. They probably don't even know that they feel hopeless, just feel ... What is a phrase that you could speak to that group, that with kindness and love would make the hopelessness almost turn invisible?
Charlotte:
Regain control or value or life choices.
Dane:
That's wonderful. You've got a gift with words for this.
Charlotte:
It's very purposeful. That's maybe why.
Dane:
It's very purposeful?
Charlotte:
Yes.
Dane:
The customer, pain, solution, offer that you've articulated, especially the pain and especially the solution are so clear that you can actually picture this solution, redefine your life intentionally that's aligned with your authentic self. It's so simple and it's clear that you can actually picture it before it's even happened. So you've gone a long way to be instantly desirable and instantly attractive to anybody that has this problem.
Dane:
From my vantage point, you will inspire purchases-
Charlotte:
Amazing.
Dane:
... but you will see.
Charlotte:
Yeah. Amazing. And the offer you suggest, not a membership as a group coaching program and it's not-
Dane:
Or coaching, mentorship, sure.
Charlotte:
Mentor, yeah.
Dane:
Yeah. Group mentoring. Yeah.
Charlotte:
Great, great, great.
Dane:
And same price, four months group mentoring.
Charlotte:
Perfect. Love it.
Dane:
You use 10 extra income.
Charlotte:
Yeah, just amazing.
Dane:
You made my job easy. Wonderful job. Rhonda, let's move to you.
Rhonda:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Dane:
Can you remind me your big goal again?
Rhonda:
I'm having trouble focusing on what part of my business I should do. I just have so many different ideas. My main is a musician music teacher. I'm close to retirement and what I have done so far is build some part of a business, although it's, I don't know, helping music teachers. And then the other part I am really passionate about, it's learning and help people with technology, [inaudible 00:15:33] Play or Google suites, things like that. They're getting frustrated so those really struggle with learning technology [crosstalk 00:15:40].
Dane:
Rhonda, would you mind switching off your headphones?
Rhonda:
Sure.
Dane:
So picking an area to focus and you seem to have a very creative mind.
Rhonda:
Yeah. Too much. And so-
Dane:
Too much, huh?
Rhonda:
Yeah, almost I can't even keep track.
Dane:
Yeah. Well, maybe not too much. It's just maybe not be tempered by a team that can implement the creative visions that you have. There might be someone that you could hire. Have you heard of Kolbe A?
Rhonda:
No.
Dane:
Kolbe A is actually really interesting. I can't remember her first name, but maybe Kathy, but if it's Kathy Kolbe, her last name's Kolbe, she's actually the daughter of the father who created the IQ test. That's kind of nuts. Huh?
Rhonda:
Yeah.
Dane:
It's like, "Yeah. My dad created the IQ test." She was frustrated with it because she's like, this doesn't really show what your gifts are. So she created something called the Kolbe profile. And if you go to startfromzero.com, go to top books, you'll see not only the books, but you'll see a link to take the Kolbe profile. And those are affiliate links, so if you do purchase, we are compensated. I clearly want to say that. You could always look it up outside that if you like.
Dane:
So Kolbe has four discovered gut-level instincts. There's people that are just naturally creative, high quick start, high idea drive, there's people that are high fact finder. They love looking at research and researching. There are folks that are real high on implementer. They love implementing ideas, but they can't think of them for the life of themselves. You tell an implementer to come up with a vision and they're like, "Ah." And then there's follow-through. Folks that really like to see ideas through.
Dane:
And these four gut-level instincts are actually all really strong gifts. So once you're aware of these, like I'm super-high, quick start. I'm like a nine, but I also have a decent follow-through, decent implementer. I'm like five-ish out of 10 and my quick start's nine out of 10. My fact-finder's like a good old two out of 10. So when I know this, I work in my quick start, it's very regenerative. It's very nourishing. I have a lot of energy.
Dane:
When it comes to trying to implement and follow through on the ideas, if I do it myself, I find myself getting tired. So I have folks that do that for me very well. So that means I need to be good at marketing and sales in order to generate sales and market, so I have money to pay for folks that do this so I can stay in my zone.
Dane:
Now, I hesitate to tell you this because it's not exactly an easy fix, but at the same time, if you start to declare when the time comes, I want a implementer and I want someone who can follow through. You start to declare that, I'm looking for someone to do this, that is, okay, one of the first options I want you to explore and just to be aware of. There's nothing wrong with being highly creative. If you like say almost too much, no, no, no. It's exactly what it needs to be.
Dane:
I imagine if you really harnessed and hone this full creativity and it didn't seem like too much at all, but like you were playing at the edge of it. So it's a great gift and the three other types that are gut-level instincts that are different may even interview for it. So that's that. The other thing though, that caught my eyes, I'm looking at your survey. I don't know if you said it out loud, but you said you're getting close to retirement.
Rhonda:
You bet.
Dane:
So-
Rhonda:
Teaching.
Dane:
Okay, it's from teaching.
Rhonda:
It's from teaching. I'm trying to build something now so that when I retire three to four years, it's pretty much established and will help support me. Right now, I've got a mailing list of about 1700 teachers with about a 45% open rate. And basically, I'm doing nothing but giving stuff for free directly. I do have a store on Teachers Pay Teachers that does okay.
Dane:
Are you familiar with the five-question process, from the Start From Zero book?
Rhonda:
Probably. I've been listening to podcasts and stuff from you and Pat Flynn and John Lee Dumas for too many episodes. Again, it's like it bubbles in my head and there's just so much going on, so you may need to remind me.
Dane:
What happens if you say out loud, "I am worthy of focusing."
Rhonda:
I'm worthy of focusing.
Dane:
Yeah. Well, it starts to arise as you share that. Does it seem hard to slow your mind down?
Rhonda:
Yes. That helps calm my body, I would say, but again, it just feels like I've got so many doors in front of me and I don't know which one to pick. And I know if I pick too many, it'll all fall away anyway.
Dane:
Yeah. Let's just slow down and let's just take a couple of breaths. Why do you suppose the mind races just the way it does?
Rhonda:
I have an inherent need to help people. I'm a natural people-pleaser. If I see someone struggling, I want to swoop in and help them either directly or help them help themselves.
Dane:
And what happens if we go with, "It's okay to take care of myself,"?
Rhonda:
That'll bring tears to my eyes, probably.
Dane:
Let's do it. "It's okay to take care of myself."
Rhonda:
It's okay to take care of myself.
Dane:
And just relax your jaw. Maybe even just, you can touch your throat or relax your throat. "It's okay to take care of me."
Rhonda:
It's okay to take care of myself.
Dane:
Let your throat do whatever it wants to do. "It's okay to take care of myself."
Rhonda:
It's okay to take care of myself. Yeah, definitely tears to my eyes.
Dane:
What's happening with your heart?
Rhonda:
It feels more peaceful.
Dane:
Is it tighter and more constricted? Is it a little more open?
Rhonda:
It's more open.
Dane:
So, "It's okay to take care of myself."
Rhonda:
It's okay to take care of myself.
Dane:
I want you to picture this 1,700-person list that you keep giving towards. You give a lot of free stuff to them, right?
Rhonda:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dane:
I want you to picture all that you're giving and while you're picturing that, I want you to say, "It's okay to ask for what I want."
Rhonda:
It's okay to ask for what I want.
Dane:
How's that one?
Rhonda:
Feels calmer.
Dane:
What's something that you'd love to ask for to this group? You could ask for anything and just be selfish for a moment.
Rhonda:
Honestly, what I crave most and desire most is being able have my own schedule. I've been enjoying being able to walk in the mornings. I love to do yoga and I like to read. The walking and yoga, anything active, I can do that and my mind will ... well, okay, my mind sometimes clears with walking. Sometimes it just gets fired up. But often when I read, I feel like, okay, "I need to go and do something now."
Dane:
Because?
Rhonda:
Because I'm a doer, if you will. I have lived below my means my whole life. I've saved well so that I will be able to retire at my early retirement at 55.
Dane:
Sorry to interrupt. "It's okay to take care of myself." If you've been doing so well there, where does that hit you the hardest?
Rhonda:
What do you mean?
Dane:
Where you've been taking care of yourself financially, you've been saving, living under your means, you're doing well there. Where would you say you're not quite taking care of yourself the way you'd like?
Rhonda:
Giving time to myself to do things that I enjoy.
Dane:
Giving time to myself to do things that I enjoy. Well, my sense is if you actually had that nailed, the other business stuff might really fall into place.
Rhonda:
Interesting.
Dane:
Your body and mind can be wigging out. It's like, you're not taking care of yourself in this way so the mind is like, "Ah, ah, hey, hey."
Rhonda:
Yeah, this has been the summer of never stopping, so I've never [inaudible 00:24:30] much over the summer, but that virtual teaching will do that to you.
Dane:
It's okay to take care of myself. With that energy, you're starting to expand within your nervous system. What would be a schedule, the start or the beginning of a schedule that would be, you're taking care of yourself?
Rhonda:
Wake up and instead of grabbing my phone and going through emails and Facebook and all that, to wake up and probably do a little bit of reading.
Dane:
If you'd like to get a blueprint to my brain, I have it in a 302-page book: Start From Zero and you can get a free chapter. You actually can get my best chapter for free on that book right now that startfromzero.com. Go check it out.
Rhonda:
And then take a walk or do some yoga.
Dane:
All right, so I want you to close your eyes. I want you to picture you're in bed in the morning and let me know when you're there.
Rhonda:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dane:
And I want you to look at your phone and I want you to say out loud, "I'll look at you later. This is me-time."
Rhonda:
I'll look at you later. This is me-time.
Dane:
And then your feet at the floor and you go on a nice, gentle walk.
Rhonda:
Oh, a gentle walk.
Dane:
Yeah. It's okay to slow down and take care of myself. My sense, Rhonda is if you do these things, the business stuff should be really clear, but just in case it's not, I highly recommend if you go to startfromzero.com/five, F-I-V-E, you'll find a very succinct five-page report that details the five-question process. And I would like you to start exploring those five questions with these folks that are in your 1,700-person list.
Dane:
And looking within those five questions, if you do that enough with enough patience and consistency, an idea will begin to emerge that will not only pay for your retirement, but it might set up an entire family veneration because it's not going to be about you, it's going to be about them. And when products are really made with service in mind and the heart of caring for others, they really do sell themselves.
Dane:
You can hear it in Charlotte's offering. Charlotte is not shaming people for having the unfulfilled problem in any way. She's not boasting that she has some solution figured out in any way. She's leading with love and it emanates from what she's doing. That sort of care for others that you feel, the five-question process is one of the best ways I've ever found to love another person in a business context.
Dane:
And really in any context, because like I said, I said this before, a lot of entrepreneurs, if we want to really serve people, we really want to serve them where the pain is the most painful and acute. But a lot of times, someone will have a broken leg or a broken arm and we're trying to say, "Hey, try my glove on." I don't need a glove. My arm's broken. You're like, "It doesn't matter. I don't care about that problem over here. Just put my glove on."
Rhonda:
Right.
Dane:
That's not love, that's selfishness. This is my passion. This is what I want to do. This is my thing, selfish. And if it's working, then do it. If it's not ... Because there are things that you can be selfish about and selfish in a positive way. It's like, this is that you want to consider yourself. Of course, please consider, we want to consider ourselves. The heart of entrepreneurship is service.
Dane:
So you get these entrepreneurs that come in and they're like, "Well, what if they don't like my product?" Or, "What if they reject me? What if they don't like my price? What should I charge? What if they don't like that? How do I get the most customers? How do I do this? But what if they don't like my price? What if they like my product?"
Dane:
And it just spins and spins. I'd say, "Well, if they don't like your price and they don't like your product, then you're not being a service to them.
Rhonda:
Sure.
Dane:
So it doesn't matter if they don't like your product. It doesn't matter if they don't like your price, because it's not about you so much as it is about you and them together. And when you marry the two, it's a wonderful, beautiful entrepreneurial experience, very nourishing. So I want you to use the five-question process on this list of 1,700 people and just ask them with a real, open heart.
Dane:
And you said you have a product that saves teachers' time?
Rhonda:
Yeah. It's lesson plans and worksheets and all those kinds of stuff. And there's lots of teachers that do this as well.
Dane:
But do you sell?
Rhonda:
Yeah, what I create definitely does sell.
Dane:
That's awesome. My mom's a piano teacher. She loves lesson plans. She's a junkie, she buys them all the time.
Rhonda:
Well, my favorite thing is actually creating them, coming up with them.
Dane:
Yeah. See my mom, I've tried to like, "You should create your own. You've done all these ones." And she's like, "Well ..." She just loves to learn others. It doesn't seem like she has that desire to create the ones like you do. She's gifted in other ways and you're gifted in other ways, naturally inclined to do certain things. So that's what I mean when I say gifted.
Rhonda:
Right.
Dane:
So how do you feel about doing the five-question process with these teachers? The questions are ... Let me ask you. What's your most present problem? How you're trying to solve that problem right now? What happens if you don't solve that problem? What would be your dreamiest genie in a bottle, magic wand solution to this problem? And would that be worth paying for? If so, how much?
Dane:
Now that's at startfromzero.com/five. You can get not only the five questions, but you'll even get an example of it in action. And it's a nice report, no email capture, there's no tricks on the page. It's not like secretly not free or anything. It's just free. And so, how would you feel about doing that process with these 1,700 teachers?
Rhonda:
Fine. Yeah.
Dane:
If you stay there and let yourself just totally orient towards this group of 1,700 people you don't need to move anywhere else. So in terms of your focus, I would obsess fully on the 1,700 people. I would focus fully on asking them all as many as you can, the five-question process. Get some of them on the phone, ask some of them by email, ask some of them in Messenger, be creative, do it in your own creative way. You can make a lesson plan around it. No, I'm just kidding.
Dane:
But if you do this, you'll be loving them. You'll be caring for them. And then a lot of the times, you may end up finding out that lesson plans is their biggest pain, and then you just sell them your lesson plan. But just in terms of where you want to focus your time, just deeply enrich yourself in that group, stay there like, which social media platform? None. Just at least right now, and maybe something about that doesn't feel right.
Dane:
And for the most part, you've got a great list of 1,700 people, stay there, love them and you'll be free.
Rhonda:
Right, sounds good.
Dane:
No assignment for you there, but I'll check in with you and see what you're thinking at the end of this call here.
Rhonda:
Okay.
Dane:
Shema?
Shema:
Hey Dane?
Dane:
My patient friend.
Shema:
Well, yeah, first, thank you for taking your time to actually speak with me and I appreciate your time to doing that. I'll give you a quick intro of just my background. I am a software architect. I've been in the field for the last 12 years and I quit my job, I think last year in July and I wanted to pursue my own path because I was just tired of just being stuck behind the computer and really not talking to the client and the vendors or the people that are making these decisions.
Shema:
I wanted to be, I guess, in the field where people were interacting, whether the businesses were being done. So that led me to start my own business, which is a software company. We offer programming and applications' services to clients. The problem, however that I have now is, I have difficulties in trying to find leads.
Shema:
As a freelancer, I've done that actually on places like Upwork, where I've been blessed to get to know people on a personal level, but in terms of a company, it's been hard to get to know these clients and to attract the clients to my business. I've invested heavily in marketing companies and-
Dane:
Can I interrupt you Shema?
Shema:
Sure. Sure.
Dane:
What's your customer? What's their pain? What's your solution? What's your offer?
Shema:
Yes. My customers are just small business owners. The pain that they have is softwares services can be expensive and they can also be competing with other offshore companies where they just don't have the money to meet their needs. The solution that I offer with my team is we provide applications that are within their budget, weekly, securely, and affordably and that's the, I guess the solution and the offer that we offer.
Dane:
What's your example of your last customer? Who were they and what'd you do for them?
Shema:
Yeah, actually there was a client from Germany. I've actually gotten to know his family, his wife and daughter. They had an off shore team and pretty much the offshore team just did a bad job for him. They stopped communication. He had a startup and they were delaying his product, which affected his clientele ... his investors because he had demos to present, but that didn't happen.
Dane:
Shema, are your customers actually small business owners that are looking to build custom applications?
Shema:
Yes.
Dane:
Okay. So not small business owners, small business owners looking to build custom applications.
Shema:
Yes.
Dane:
And their pain is projects aren't getting finished on time and on budget?
Shema:
Yes.
Dane:
All right. So customer, small business owners looking to build custom applications. Pain is, projects not getting finished on time and on budget. The solution is, custom applications built on time and on budget?
Shema:
Yes.
Dane:
And the offer is whatever meets their needs and your needs together?
Shema:
Yes.
Dane:
Okay. Imagine going out into the desert without water, it'd be rough and you wouldn't last long.
Shema:
Yes.
Dane:
Going out into the ... The desert is the business marketing world in a sense, so you need to get water. You need a backpack full of water and that backpack full of water is a clear customer, a clear pain, a clear solution and a clear offer.
Shema:
That's good. Okay.
Dane:
Once you have that, you could hire marketing firms, you could hire all these things, but if these things are laissez-faire or not as clear, then you're not going to be able to find them from Doug.
Shema:
Okay.
Dane:
But now that we have your customer clearly identified, small business owners looking to build custom applications, do these small business owners also usually raise funding?
Shema:
Yes, because they are categorized as either people that are trying to get their startup idea going, or B, they already have a small business where they just need their customer application.
Dane:
So small business owners that have startup ideas and funding?
Shema:
Yes. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dane:
Are those your dream clients?
Shema:
That'd be my dream perfect clients, yes.
Dane:
Wonderful. So small business startups that have a startup idea and funding?
Shema:
Yes. Actually, that's very my dream targets, which I didn't even think about until now.
Dane:
Great, yes. It's wonderful. It's a good client. So now you're going to ask yourself a couple of questions: where can I find these guys and how can I develop trust overnight? So those are the two questions I want you to start pontificating, thinking about, where are they at and how can you find them and how can you build trust overnight?
Dane:
Write those questions down: where can I find them? How can I contact them and how can I build trust overnight?
Shema:
Okay.
Dane:
I imagine that people that are startups that just recently raised money, probably got a little bit of fear.
Shema:
Right.
Dane:
The official handbook for startups who've just raised money. That's a little eBook guide that if you were to create, you could send out to all these folks: The Official Guide for Startups Who've Just Raised Money, and Don't Want to Lose It.
Shema:
Okay. That's really good.
Dane:
How many clients have you had that fit these criteria, startups that have raised money?
Shema:
I will say just one. The other ones have just been project rescues for ongoing businesses, but the one from Germany was the one who actually took over his application from his offshore team and-
Dane:
So you rescue sinking software projects?
Shema:
Yes. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dane:
Dude. That's cool.
Shema:
And actually now just talking to you, had an idea to create an eBook that you just mentioned, targeting those, my dream clients, which actually now just talking about it, is kind of making me a bit emotional somehow because I missed it. So I just got an idea to make an eBook on, I guess how to rescue projects for startups that are not going well, that I know.
Dane:
Yeah. That sounds amazing. Very good. And with that, you will be free because that book will do all the work for you. So you'll invest time and it'll be a bit draining and exhausting and intense to potentially create that. And you could also ask, how could I make this in a regenerative, fun way and do it that way? I find that writing my book or doing videos, they have a certain kind of energetic exhaustion to them because it's like taking all of my life force and putting it into something that can then live on without me.
Shema:
Right. And I've done some eBooks. The one actually kind of released this week was an eBook on how much customs software cost, but talking to you now kind of makes me think, "Okay, that was okay, but I'm not targeting my right clients because I'm not targeting their actual pain or I'm not preaching to those set of clients."
Shema:
So I'm getting tons of ideas just from talking to you now so that's helpful.
Dane:
That's great. I want you just to take a moment and think about ... Just write down all the ideas that you're getting and then I'll check in with you here in a moment. So, Scott let's hear your assignment.
Scott:
All right. Let me pull it up here. Hi, I hope you're doing well and your family's happy and healthy. I know we're going through a crazy time right now. Things are very challenging for me just as an artist. Because I care about you and your success, I would love to spend some time with you this week or next to talk through your most difficult and painful problems.
Scott:
Together, we will create a custom solution that will ensure your success and that you reach your full potential as an artist. I have a proven process that will help us come to a solution that is custom-tailored to meet your needs and the whole process will take no more than 15 minutes. If you're interested in maximizing your artistic and financial potential, let me know when it's good for you or click the link in my signature and we get to the time to connect. Looking forward to serving you, Scott.
Dane:
It sounds good to me.
Scott:
Cool. Thanks.
Dane:
Yeah. And great but you'll see if it gets resonance with the folks that schedule calls with you, you'll have set so much context that those calls will probably go so well.
Scott:
Yeah. Thank you.
Dane:
If that's too much, they'll probably be really open, but you might just put in there, like there's a chance we could fall flat on our face, but I still want to try and help you anyway.
Scott:
Great.
Dane:
That humanity will probably bring a lot more connection. Very good. Rhonda, did I give you an assignment?
Rhonda:
Well, you asked me to think about what we had talked about and see what it brings up with me.
Dane:
Go ahead.
Rhonda:
First of all, it reminds me of a podcast I actually heard yesterday on E on fire where one hour of work on the inside will be equal to seven hours on the outside and that'll naturally, laws of attraction kind of thing. I wrote down to do something for myself that I've always wanted to do, that I've denied myself because it takes too much time or too much money to set hours for my business work and to keep to them, don't overwork myself, enjoy the life I have at the moment and pay attention to the feelings I get when I get emotional, because those are probably the areas I need to work on the most.
Rhonda:
And then as far as those five questions, one of the things that I've been doing all summer each week is doing a coffee chat with other music teachers. So, I think inviting them to like a coffee chat might be an easy way to do that.
Dane:
Sounds amazing. And what are you going to do when you wake up in the morning and look at your phone, what are you going to say to it?
Rhonda:
I'm going to say, "I will look at you later. This is me-time."
Dane:
Very good. Nice work. Charlotte, how about you? What did I tell you to do? I can't even remember.
Charlotte:
I don't think I had actions. Questions came to me.
Dane:
Let's hear them, what do you got?
Charlotte:
I was wondering, if I do the group mentoring, which I love that five months, how would you ... If I was only mentoring as a group, I guess I would have to set just up the number of attendees, right? Like, I don't know.
Dane:
What's your question behind your question?
Charlotte:
I guess I have two questions. One is, should I set a limit of customers cohorts if you want [inaudible 00:43:01].
Dane:
No. You're a good enough and capable enough. If it constraints, put it in front of you. Whether it's really big or really small, you'll figure out a way to do it.
Charlotte:
Great. And you will suggest that I introduce [inaudible 00:43:14]. I have a guest speaker just for each station, or I just open [inaudible 00:43:19] and then life mentoring for them?
Dane:
No. I would, in my research figure out the most crippling problems people are facing and each lesson and each week is based on one of those crippling problems.
Charlotte:
Correct.
Dane:
Or you just knock each one of them out one by one.
Charlotte:
Wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent.
Dane:
So your curriculum is based on the crippling pain?
Charlotte:
Great. And on that, the second question that I had in mind, if I may, because I have two curriculums in mind, but I think I should choose one. One was more around the holistic wellbeing to realize [inaudible 00:43:59] and the other one was more on professional paths realignment.
Dane:
Probably. Those sound okay. In an ideal world, I wouldn't think of them in those terms at all. Holistic, I would probably call like what nature wants you to be. And professional, it would be what your authentic work purposes. Very good. You just create that program on the fly with them. So we're going to tackle these problems; this week, this problem, this week, this problem, by the end, all of this stuff will be transformed, et cetera, et cetera.
Dane:
And so we've gone Charlotte, we've done Rhonda, Scott, so where to? Shema. Shema, how you've been doing writing ideas down?
Shema:
Good. The idea first that I got is to completely change the targets that I initially had, which is to target my dream targets, the startup owners who have funding. And then two is to write an eBook about project rescue and the title should be centered on trust, cost and delivery because those are the three major pain points and questions that they have.
Shema:
And then the other one that came up was, to get personal, especially on social media where they can actually get to see me, where I can offer tips so that they can find another channel before they get to me, to see my activity online and things of that nature. So those are the ideas that came to mind by the way.
Dane:
I love that you're good at eBooks and I love that you're doing this. And I think another eBook that might be really nice to explore that could either be broken out of, or put into a chapter is Red Flags to Look Out for Before It's Too Late and Your Project Needs Rescued.
Shema:
Awesome.
Dane:
And that could be the introduction to the rescue thing too. I was like, all right, you just hired a firm, you just got funding. Are they going to make it on time? Here are the red flags to make sure and see if you are or not. If you're just delusional or you're actually grounded in reality.
Shema:
We'll see.
Dane:
Well, good work people, you did good today. Shema, Charlotte, Ronda and Scott, good work.
Rhonda:
Thank you.
Shema:
Thank you.
Scott:
Thank you.
Dane:
If you'd like to know the number one thing that kills people from being successful in entrepreneurship, it's really simple. It's them trying to do it alone, trying to do it without mentorship, trying to do it without accountability, trying to do it without a way to focus, trying to do it without somebody helping you along the way to get your mind straight.
Dane:
And right now, I'm running a yearly mentoring, accountability and focus community called Starters. And you can learn more about Starters and join a community of amazing entrepreneurs, all practicing and living the principles from this podcast in this book. How do you get good at this stuff? Practice. How do you get even better? Being around others that practice. And how do you become unstoppable and just move no matter what? Community, community, community.
Dane:
And not just any community, a community of people that don't shame you for wanting freedom, a community of people that don't look at you weird for saying you want more. You can find that community as Starters. If you go to startfromzero.com, you'll see our products up top, and then you can go and find a Starters program. We would love to have you. And we also have a good fit quiz that you can take on that page because not everybody's a good fit for Starters.
Dane:
So, if you go look at the Starters page, take the good fit quiz, and it'll tell you if you'll be a good fit for that program. Listen, we don't accept everyone because we're obviously not for everyone, but we are for certain people. If you'd like to see if that person is you, go to startfromzero.com, look up products, find Starters, and then fill out that quiz. And we look forward to supporting you and mentoring you on your journey. (singing)