The Business of Authority

Why Chat GPT can be like having a sort of infinite number of (free) interns.How to learn and deal with the limitations of the service so you can ensure you’re getting reliable information.Various use cases for your authority business, including blind spots to watch for.Understanding the application’s privacy and IP challenges and making decisions in line with your mission.RESOURCESRochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | TwitterQuotables“I've heard it described as it's like having a sort of infinite number of interns for free.”—JS“It doubles down on the things that are already there versus exploring the new and the interesting and the quirky.”—RM “It has the opinion of the sort of collective unconscious of people who have posted stuff online. So it's skewed and not perfect and not true…But I used it as a sparring partner for some of my maybe more controversial ideas.”—JS“Somebody has to take that extra step right now to say, oh what other voices are there on this topic?”—RM“(We have been experimenting with) an app called Podium that you can upload your audio, your MP3 file, and it goes through and creates the show notes and highlights and quotes and timestamps and chapters with summaries and timestamps, and it takes about 45 seconds and it's free.”—JS“In this case it's a thinking assistant because it's listening to your words and deciding what to do with them.”—RM “Okay here's a wild one, especially for the non-technical people: I told Chat GPT to hand code a webpage for a solo consultant…and boom, it puked out the HTML and the CSS and you just open 'em in your browser and it's like a website.”—JS“I don't need somebody to listen to an hour (of the podcast) if they can get value in three minutes. That's okay. You're not hurting my feelings. Take what you need. It's a gift.”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

If you’ve ever taken a business course, chances are that competition was presented as a zero-sum game: you battle it out and only one party wins.Jonathan and I explore why thinking about your competition differently can turbo-charge how you sell and market your expertise:How to identify your competition in similar spaces (and look for non-traditional competitors you might overlook).How the game changes when you view your competitors not as adversaries, but as fellow players in the same game.Why focusing on your ideal client is a more sustainable (and memorable) move than trying to beat competitors.How to use your competition to make positioning decisions that will attract your ideal clients and buyers.What it means when you have no competitors.Quotables“If you put a label on yourself, then people can Google for it and find a list of alternatives.”—JS“There is this deeply ingrained thing in capitalism that you have to have competition…that your job is to slay them.”—RM “I know I do lose deals to people, but my mindset is that I probably dodged a bullet.”—JS“Just kiss them goodbye in a nice way…I want you to get the help that you need and I don't think I'm the right solution.”—RM“If you have an abundance mindset, you're playing an infinite game and you see your “competitors” as other players like you’re all in the park playing Frisbee.”—JS“I don't wanna be apples to apples because nobody else is exactly like me.”—RM “It would be pretty easy to come up with something where you have no competitors, but it's because there's no demand.”—JS“We do create our own competitors.”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

Why you want a developmental editor—what they do and how to work with one.The role of a copyeditor and how to determine who has the skill sets for your particular book.The role of a copyeditor and how to determine who has the skill sets for your particular book.How to decide which editorial comments to accept and which to ignore.Determining schedules and timing with your editor (hint: more time does not guarantee a better book).Where to go to find potential editors for your project.RESOURCESRochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | TwitterQuotables“What we're talking about today is when you're self-publishing and you need someone to make sure that your book holds together…that it's not rife with typos and your thoughts are carried coherently throughout the book.”—RM “I suppose worst case scenario (after editorial review) was start from scratch. Best case scenario is it's perfect. Certainly the reality is somewhere in between.”—JS“I can't imagine anybody ever gets a developmental edit that says it's perfect. Editors by their nature can always find something to change.”—RM“I can imagine getting that feedback…and pushing back slightly and saying why, do you think that's going to make the book better?.”—JS“I want something that's more than ‘I did this once and let me show you how to do it too’…that is not an authority book.”—RM“The advice to the listener is get a developmental editor and listen with an open mind.”—JS“There aren't nearly as many people hanging a shingle for developmental editing as there are for copy editing. So it does create some complexity in the search, but the outcome is worth it.”—RM“There was a torturous experience that was very common when I wrote books for O'Reilly…you'd still be working on chapter 10 and you'd be getting edits back on chapter one.”—JS LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

Identify those in your target market who will use this as an opportunity to leapfrog past their competitors.Start moving up the food chain within your niche, either with more complex work or with larger clients.Use this extra time to create authority products—such as a book—or productized services and work on building your email list and/or allies.Look at serving markets adjacent to yours—the very event limiting your clients’ ability to hire you might have the opposite effect on those just next door.How to avoid making moves from desperation (and what to do now to insulate yourself from future “surprises”).Quotables“A bunch of people are going to belt tighten and hunker down, but not all of them will. Find the ones who are using this as an opportunity to make a leapfrog event happen.”—JS“If you are taking a consultant's mindset…then you've got an opportunity to do something that is perhaps less revenue, but higher impact.”—RM“Perhaps you could create it (productized service or product) quickly enough to address the new current expensive problem in some way that is still very profitable for you, but is aligned with their risk tolerance.”—JS“This could be the ideal time to take the step from thinking of yourself as a freelancer to thinking of yourself as a consultant and business owner.”—RM“It might be that some of them (your clients) take the opportunity to speed up, get ahead of the pack. You could do the same thing for your own business.”—JS“The tyranny of the checklist: it feels so good for some people to just check that box off and convince themselves they're moving their business forward while they miss the real opportunity.”—RM“It's possible that there's something right adjacent to it (your target market) that…is triggering an opportunity.”—JS“The key when you suddenly have this big open slot of time is not to get desperate…that desperation just leaks out of you and everybody picks up on it.”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

Why time is a cost when you’re selling expertise, but doesn’t need to factor directly into your pricing strategy.When to track your time—and what to do with what you learn.Evaluating the quality of the time you’re spending on client work—your personal happiness factor.Negotiating with contractors for non-time based fees on joint projects (and one cautionary tale).RESOURCESRochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | TwitterQuotables“It (time) is our cost, right? So you can't just ignore your costs, but… it's like you just don't want to be setting your price based on your cost. You wanna set your prices based on the value.”—JS“You probably won't pay so much attention to your time unless something starts to feel off. Your spidey sense will start tingling when things are going off the rails.”—RM “What's the point of tracking all of this, measuring all of this if you're not gonna use it to make a decision?”—JS“Client profile “A” gets a yes—I'm happy to work with you, here's the price. Let's go. Client “B” gets a eh. I don't think we're a fit.”—RM“Once you're good at what you do, billing for your time is leaving money on the table.”—JS“I would negotiate a price with the consultant to do Project X as we define it together—then I don't care how many hours they work.”—RM “That billable hour concept—it infects the whole organization.”—JS“How can I make the hours that I'm spending on work happier? How can I just enjoy this more? Because that's the freedom that we get as soloists—we get to create our own reality.”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

The traditional path to authority and how writing and speaking fit in.Why you don’t need to write/publish to run a successful expertise business, although building authority gives you more growth options.What to do when you’re better at speaking than writing.Viewing writing as a practice vs. a natural talent that you have or you don’t.Quotables“If you run a chain of laundromats, you don't need to be out there publishing books about it or doing a daily email list.”—JS“The question is: Can you do enough to grow your business if you’re not writing?”—RM “There's almost an inherent built-in editorial process with writing that does not exist with speaking.”—JS“The tried and true path to authority is writing and speaking, and for most people, that's gonna be the fastest, easiest way to authority.”—RM“This turns into a marketing question, like how am I gonna do my content marketing—is it gonna be an audio first workflow? ”—JS“To go out and just talk, hoping there's an idea in there is not doing you or your audience any favors.”—RM“I feel like a big part of getting better at writing is just writing more. If you really can't write, okay then, alternatives abound.”—JS“You can work through this stuff by talking, but…don't do that in front of an audience until it's tight enough so that you're not wasting their time.”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

Why you want to learn how to business—the craft of building a profitable, sustainable business for yourself.The three most critical areas to master (delivery, sales and marketing) and how to start practicing each immediately.What to do now to avoid the “sophomore slump”—your second year when referrals tend to dry up.Why speaking and writing—even at the very beginning of your business—are worth committing to consistently.Teaching your contacts how to look out for the key trigger that says it’s time to call you in.RESOURCESRochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | TwitterQuotables“Use that time (your first year of business) to learn how to business, learn the craft of business, building a profitable business that you want to show up and work at every day.”—JS“(Your pre-layoff work) came to a screeching halt because somebody else made a decision that was outside of your control.”—RM “You probably think that doing a great job is how you're gonna magically get new clients.”—JS“Selling is the art of taking someone who's interested and showing them how you can help them, how you can transform their situation into something better.”—RM“Instead of pitching, you try to talk them out of working with you, confidently, perhaps with some humor.”—JS“If you're just getting started, focus on actively listening (in a sales meeting) because your instinct is gonna be to do the opposite.”—RM “You're not gonna know who your ideal buyer is. You might not even know who your target market is, but you do want to show up in places where people who might have problems you can solve are hanging out.”—JS“Think in terms of a trigger: what does that other person have to hear to know that they should call you in?”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

The value of having an externally focused mission—and why it may take some time and exploration to find yours. Thinking like an investor—how to make bets with high upside potential while minimizing your risk.The role of experimentation in building your business—even when it feels risky or vulnerable.Why you want to discover your genius zone—and become brave enough to align every aspect of your business around it.Overcoming guilt to hire the home support you need to work at your best.Quotables“The thing with self-oriented goals, the me goals..they don't give you much direction. There's like a hundred ways you could reach these goals.”—JS“There's no shame if this is not the life for you. But it does get measurably easier if you've got a north star that you're shooting for.”—RM “I feel like I'm totally unemployable at this point.”—JS“People who are at the very pinnacle of this soloist life, they look at every decision as…is this going to bring me closer to where I want to be?”—RM“Look, it's a bet—you're making a bet. And if you're not a gambler...you want to de-risk the decision as much as possible.”—JS“Every human being has these fears, like the zebra that lifts itself up out of the herd will get slayed by a lion.”—RM “I think creating products is a great way to invest in your business.”—JS“We deserve to have a great life and to enjoy ourselves. This is not about doing things that we hate for people we don't like.”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

The ideal number of competitors and target clients in your niche to ensure it’s big enough to keep you profitably in business and small enough that you’re memorable.Why fishing in the right barrel vs. trying to cover the ocean is an ideal strategy for a soloist.The importance of finding your "unfair advantage”.How to find and analyze a potential market niche, including government statistics, trade associations, and social media.RESOURCESRochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | TwitterQuotables“There's this sort of tacit assumption that more prospects is better. So why would you narrow your focus on a subset of the whole universe?”—JS“Maybe you don't need to have a hundred thousand people on an email list to have a viable business.”—RM“Would you rather be in the ocean with that hook, or would you rather be standing next to a barrel of trout?”—JS“I don't have to write about 20 different things. I don't have to have 10 different products and services—I can just focus on whatever this particular group is most interested in.”—RM“Where do you have an unfair advantage? Like where are you already connected with a bunch of people? That could be your target market.”—JS“You have to be excited by the depths you're going to go to when you decide to niche.”—RM “I’ve just heard this story so many times when people finally niche down to an appropriate level…they start feeling traction right away.”—JS“’I like all my clients the same.’ Nobody has ever said that to me. They’ll say ‘Oh let me tell you about Joe or Sarah. If I could fill my pipeline with people just like that, I would be thrilled.’”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

You’re not on the radar of your ideal clients, so you’re not making their short list.Your ideal buyers are aware of you, but don’t recognize your offerings as a solution to their problem.Your buyers recognize that you offer a potential solution to their problem, but they don’t find your claims credible—they don’t trust you (yet).Your ideal people trust your solution to their potential problem, but your solution costs more than it’s worth to them to solve it.Quotables“A market is a place—virtual or otherwise—where buyers and sellers regularly show up to transact, to trade goods and services.”—JS“If there is commerce, there's the opportunity to make a profit.”—RM“It's very common that the buyers will not recognize that the inputs that you are selling are solutions to the pains they're experiencing.”—JS“If nobody knows you exist, there is no surprise that your stuff isn't selling.”—RM“You put a big label on the front of your bottle that says fast migraine relief…and you've still got the small print on the back with all the ingredients.”—JS“A feature is not a solution.”—RM“Find people who have a bigger version of the same problem, which probably looks like a larger buyer.”—JS“Wanting to work in your genius zone…might cause you to change your niche market vs. changing your offerings.”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

The role of leverage in scaling your expertise business.Building a solo business model without leverage from products or employees.Growing as a solo but adding leverage to scale: products (books, memberships, workshops, licensing) and/or people (contractors).Building a firm with traditional W-2 employees—and the two key activities you’ve got to love to make this work.The challenges—and opportunities—to grow and scale in each business model and how to decide which is right for you.RESOURCESRochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | TwitterQuotables“There are certain kinds of industries and certain kinds of expertise where when you combine them in the right ways, you can actually build a million dollar plus solo business with no leverage.”—RM“Anything that allows you to do more with less is leverage, whether that's your pricing model or anything.”—JS“Contractors are usually contractors because they don't want to be employees.”—RM“You're using a team of people to help you produce new income streams, new lines of business that are more highly leveraged .”—JS“Having contractors first is a really good training ground for having employees.”—RM“It's (having employees) like being married to 10 people and you're worried about 10 mortgages now.”—JS“If you're gonna have employees, it's the equivalent of baby birds saying “give me a worm”. You've got to keep them busy.”—RM“As soon as you get into product, then you can have a real hit—like you can really have a hit.”—JS LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

The leap of faith required to act generously right from the start of any promising relationship.Moving transactional interactions—like say guesting on a podcast—into relational ones.How to find the right watering holes for other leaders in your niche—without limiting yourself to social media.The one invitation you can offer new contacts that is often a hard yes.The sometimes hidden value from buying cohort-based courses and programs.Quotables“There needs to be a leap of faith in your mind that reaching out to broaden your authority circle (to maybe someday amplify your message), is gonna start off by you showing up in a generous way to help other people.”—JS“You’re in the green room and you have this interaction and then afterwards you've developed a rapport and you've got the opportunity to build a relationship—I love podcasting for that.”—RM“There's this group of people that are all climbing the same mountain, but we're at different points or different places so we don't know they're there.”—JS“You can move something that's a transaction into something more relational.”—RM“A good watering hole: some kind of class that has a cohort where people are birds of a feather flocking around this particular idea.”—JS“I wanna find other people like me, because guess what? The Chamber of Commerce in my town doesn't have anybody like me.”—RM “If you cannot find a watering hole—like you're pretty clear about who you're looking for, but you just cannot find a place where they gather online—you can start one.”—JS“You will help them (new contacts) because you think what they're doing is interesting or there's something about their story that resonates with you.”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

Is it a good idea to have multiple themes or strategies in a single year?Why running your business—prospecting, closing deals, delivery—always has to be a top priority (hint: nothing good happens when you don’t have cash flow).The natural progression from starting a business to defining your value proposition to earning serious revenue—and how a single focus will move you faster.How to think about monetizing your expertise as you grow.RESOURCESRochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | TwitterQuotables“You still have to do all of the care and feeding of your business. You have to have money coming in. You have to be closing deals… you have to be doing delivery.”—JS“Prospecting never stops. Ideally on the road to authority, you do a lot of prospecting in the beginning and then it tapers off.”—RM“I get nervous when people are splitting their time between two themes.”—JS“I focus a lot better if I've got one lodestar that I'm shooting for.”—RM“Of all of the things that people have been paying me for, what is the thing I really want to show up and do?”—JS“How are you going to make money out of this?”—RM“Clients are happy to pay your exorbitant fees and your growth looks like getting bigger and bigger clients for whom you'll deliver more and more value and therefore can charge higher and higher.”—JSYou really have to marshal all of your energy into one thing to push to that next level.”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

Deciding what checklists, systems and automation make the most sense for you.How to determine where your time has the most value (and let go of what you can).Knowing if/when you’re ready to outsource any tasks—and why you want to understand the process and potential outcomes before you hand them off.How to think about and plan the financial side of your business so it’s serving you (vs. the other way around).Quotables”The automation that I have now began its life as checklists.”—JS“There are five areas where you can have systems and checklists—where you want to pay attention to your business and the underlying systems.”—RM“It gives you a chance to step back and be like, is everything I'm doing here adding value? Especially the really hard stuff—is that adding value?”—JS“It (making checklists) also gives you better insight into how much time you're spending running your business.”—RM“Have a really simple, straightforward (selling) system that is as easy as it can be…that you're comfortable with, so it doesn't make you cringe.”—JS“It's really easy to let the selling go when you have a thorny client problem. Having a system—with checklists—is really important to keep your pipeline full.” —RM“The stuff that you do to keep your marketing machine operating on a regular basis can be very small—like it doesn't need to be overwhelming.”—JS“This is where you ask, so do I want a 401k? Do I want some kind of a retirement plan inside my business? What are the best options for me?”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

When it’s time to develop a new strategy (or pivot from the old one).How to use your strategy as a filtering system to evaluate and choose the right tactics.Using themes to focus your activities for the year.Punching through an income plateau with new strategy and tactics.RESOURCESRochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | TwitterQuotables“It was like I had a team of people that just did what they were supposed to do.”—JS“Your strategy is like a filtering system—there's a gazillion things we can do in any moment but if we're filtering through a strategy, we're much more likely to be productive.”—RM“Tactics without strategy is a disaster.”—JS“You've got this litmus test of the strategy to say, okay, does this tactic align with my strategy?”—RM“A strategy automatically has risk. If your strategy can't fail, it's not a strategy.”—JS“What are your people working on? What are the buzzwords they're using? What are the challenges that they're facing?”—RM“Part of my overall mission does point me to reaching people who are younger and younger. I even have a children's book sketched out that illustrates the insanity of hourly billing.”—JS“If you've been at an income plateau for a while, and nothing you do seems to punch through—that's when you need a new theme for the year to shake up your tactics.”—RMLinksGood Strategy Bad Strategy A More Useful Definition Of Strategy LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

Clips from Episode 211: Systems, Habits and Creating Time LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

Full episode:Episode 219: Time ≠ Money LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

The differences between the opposite ends of the spectrum and how to own any position you choose to claim.How to migrate from one point on the spectrum—selling, marketing, service delivery and authority building—to another.Matching your business and revenue model (including how big an audience you’ll want to attract) to your unique balance between consulting and coaching.Deciding which kinds of transformations matter most to you.The role of advisory retainers in moving across the spectrum.Quotables“It (coaching) feels a lot more like a transformation that you're selling and…it feels more like you're transforming the buyer into thinking a new way.”—JS“You have these opposite ends of the spectrum between consulting and coaching and then there's so many points in between you can own.”—RM“I took baby steps from consulting to coaching because it was like a relatively small number of people paying me a relatively high amount of money.”—JS“I had this philosophy—even when consulting—that the answer wasn't in me. The answer was in the client. And my job was to get that answer out.”—RM“It's really hard for me to imagine ever reversing direction on that spectrum (of consulting to coaching).”—JS“Now my greatest joy is when somebody hits a new level. Watching that dawn on people—midwifing those transformations—that's what I value.”—RM“And they're like, ‘I know I've heard you say this a thousand times, but you said it a little differently this time, and all of a sudden it clicked.’ I just love those because they're so visceral to the reader or the listener.”—JS“Advisory retainers are another option where you can start to straddle the difference between classic consulting (where you're doing) and classic coaching (where you're always there).”—RMThe Experience Economy Episode with Joe Pine LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

Planning around the amped up fear about uncertainty—recession, inflation, monetary policy, cryptocurrency, war, politics (just to name a few).The power of building even more discreet and creative niches—and making money from them in new ways while serving people who energize and inspire you. The birth of a major social media platform that optimizes information exchange within communities—with tighter controls on access.Soloists will keep multiplying, especially those migrating from tech space layoffs and those disenchanted with corporate business-as-usual.We crave connection even more after a long shut-down—we are drawn to those who help us feel connected in our work and our lives.RESOURCESRochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | TwitterQuotables“There is going to be so much fear about things like recession inflation, monetary policy, war, politics—and it's easy to get sucked into that. But those who don't—those who conquer it—have got the opportunity to up our game and take home a bigger share of the marbles.”—RM“There's a great line from Game of Thrones. There's a character called Little Finger, and he's talking about how the world will be thrown into chaos. And he says ‘Chaos is a ladder’. And it's such a great way to look at it…like it can be good.”—JS“Niching is actually fun because you're finding your people, you're finding the way that you can use your superpower…the next thing you know, your business is full of people who energize and inspire you.”—RM“Another social media related prediction that I'll make is that LinkedIn benefits from all of this bananas on Twitter.”—JS“A reasonable number (of those laid off from tech) will say, you know what? I'm done. I'm done with somebody else having control over me…I am gonna do this on my own.”—RM“There's a really interesting development in the AI world called stable diffusion, which turns text prompts into unbelievable 2D images.”—JS“Actuarial valuations were a commodity, but nobody recognized it until somebody decided to start a new firm and change the pricing structure. And then guess what? All the big firms dropped their prices and started to finally look at that data as a commodity.”—RM“If your clients cannot differentiate you from other people who have a similar looking resume in any meaningful way—like they don't see any meaningful difference between you and the next 10 people—then you're on sort of thin ice.”—JS LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

Why frictionless publishing and distribution is usually the way to go (and what to do when it isn’t).One publishing tech stack suggestion for low friction daily posting and sharing.Working around the downside of automation, AKA how to make sure your posts aren’t riddled with typos.Evaluating alternative social media distribution options.Quotables“It's really important to make this stuff as frictionless as possible so that you can just stick to the really important piece, which is coming up with brilliant new insights and getting them out to the people who are excited to read them.”—JS“I schedule everything that can be scheduled.”—RM“Zapier gives you these little building blocks that you can just drag and drop or select from a list.”—JS“I'm always looking for preset easy ways to do some of this kind of automation without making yourself crazy.”—RM“A relatively new addition to my stack is Grammarly. I installed Grammarly on everything and wow—immediately addicted.”—JS“Cutting and pasting my post into ConvertKit and sending it to myself allows me to see it like the reader does, and I will edit in ways that I wouldn't otherwise.”—RM“If you are just syndicating content to these platforms, your engagement's not gonna be really high.”—JS“Once you've gotten in the habit (of posting) and you're feeling good, then look carefully at the social distribution of what you're doing, because every platform is different.”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

How your target audience can guide how much you reveal about yourself and/or your politics.Deciding which boundaries and guardrails make sense for you, your work and how you want to roll. The advantage we have as soloists—but don’t always use—when deciding how much of ourselves to share.One technique to deal with clients who have disclosed something distasteful to your core values (but you can’t fire them yet).RESOURCESRochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | TwitterQuotables“I'm not saying no to (talking about) chicken vindaloo, I'm saying yes to ‘Let's talk about pricing today’.”—JS“If you're doing B2B to big corporates—unless you're running a politically oriented law firm—then you're probably not talking politics.”—RM“I don't know how to build a business or help someone build a business where you really don't care about your clients.”—JS“We’re soloists—we get to decide…we're not working for ‘the man’ getting a salary and having to serve whoever comes in the door.”—RM“Maybe you're not there yet, but you will be able to become increasingly picky over time (about who you take as clients) and it's delightful.”—JS“If you can't say goodbye right now, then you put them on the list—they're the first one that's gonna go, and you'll find somebody else to replace them.”—RM“Just write something that you want to learn a lot more about. Pick that as your central topic, and if you’re really excited to learn more, you don't have to be an expert.”—JS“Think about glass or plexiglass so you can see them, but they can't touch you. That negativity, that thing that you really don't like, can't touch you—that's a technique that therapists use all the time.”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

When automating or outsourcing tasks makes it clear that they don’t need to be done at all.How to evaluate contractors and advisors for signs that they’re saving—vs. costing—you time and money.How to think about out-of-pocket cost vs. your time and the complexity of your business operation.Why you want to periodically re-evaluate your existing leverage and how it’s working for you.The role of your mindset when working with outsiders (or paying their invoice).Quotables“It's usually just making (automation leverage) simpler by shaving off stuff that apparently doesn't need to be there.”—JS“How do you know when you cross the line from leverage saving you money to costing you money?”—RM“In the context of this episode, the question becomes ‘do I even need to hire anyone to do this at all?’ Like maybe I shouldn't even be doing this anymore.”—JS“So it's really being aware of when someone you're handing things off to is making your life more difficult rather than less.”—RM“In re-evaluating places where you create leverage, I feel like systems is the one that's the easiest. If we're talking about SOPs and text documents, they're so fluid and easy to update and super useful.”—JS“Deciding to outsource something—or even thinking about outsourcing—changes how you think about things. Either you don't miss it at all or you ask ‘why was I doing that?’”—RM“Ask: is there a way I can optimize this in a one-time way that will produce ongoing leverage from this money that I'm spending?”—JS“There might be something in there (SaaS upgrades) that we hadn't considered before, that we hadn't known was available that might make our lives so much better.”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

Four primary ways to assemble and deliver your expertise—and the pros and cons of each.Shifting your mindset while shifting your service and product packaging, AKA how to move upstream confidently.How to conduct a listening tour of your ideal clients and buyers for focused direction on (re)packaging and price points.Integrating what your audience most wants from you with your genius zone.RESOURCESRochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | TwitterQuotables“You have this expertise that produces results, but you're used to delivering it in just one particular way… How can we come up with some different ways to assemble it and deliver it?”—JS“There’s the fear factor: If you're used to getting $50,000 to build something and now you’ll get $5,000 to outline it, you’re thinking ‘where am I gonna get the other 45,000?’”—RM“If you're an order taker and you disagree with the orders, it's like the world telling you to move upstream.”—JS“Think assessments which allow you to shift your revenue and to productize your knowledge into something that's easier to sell.”—RM“It's not that difficult to add some kind of upfront design or architecture phase to whatever the thing is that you normally build.”—JS“I like listening tours where you're going to people who are your ideal clients, and you're asking them about the biggest problems they're trying to solve—and you find out more about that, so you get a sense of magnitude.”—RM“I like to ask historically, have you tried to solve this in the past? How much money or sleep have you lost because of this problem? Things like that, because they can answer that. Like they are the expert on those questions.”—JS“Instead of just looking to what other people are doing, we have to really understand what our audience wants from us.”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

Why profitability is the ultimate anti-vanity metric that will give you a quick read on the health of your business.How to start thinking about your time as part of your profit equation.One way to value your business that will rewire how you think about its profitability. The thrills of desire-based planning—and learning to consider and manage opportunity cost.Quotables“It's so easy to get wrapped up in ‘Oh, my podcast downloads are increasing’, or ‘My mailing list is growing dramatically’, or ‘My website traffic is going up’. None of that matters if you're not increasing your profitability steadily over time.”—JS“It's really tempting to just think that as soloists, we don't have any real costs so we don’t have to think about profitability.”—RM“The thing I do like about an S Corp is it is financially separated—the business and your personal money is separated. You have to run payroll, you have to pay FICA, you have to do all that stuff.”—JS“You know how much leverage you have when you try to sell or even think about selling a business. What is this actually worth if I'm not here?”—RM“So you can take your $245 million and put it where the sun don't shine because you are wrong and I'm not gonna do what you're asking me to do, which is bad work.”—JS“It's what I think of as desire-based planning. You ask what do I want? What is my desire? Who do I want to serve? What revolution do I want to lead? What new thing do I want to learn?”—RM“Given that constraint of not the entire full tube of toothpaste, you get creative about how you're gonna get that last bit out.”—JS“The thing that always makes me sad for people is when I see them not making decisions because they don't know what to do—so they do nothing.”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

How do you/they disclose that there will be real-time training happening?Your role as the buyer when your seller isn’t coming to you with full disclosure and pricing options.Assessing the impact on your authority when you tell your client you’re not an expert (and the surprisingly positive view most buyers will take).How not to fall into the employee mindset trap—and what to do instead.Using new challenges as a way to move up the food chain with your clients.RESOURCESRochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | TwitterQuotables“Should you always warn the client that you don't have experience in something they've asked you to do? My answer to that is yes. Why wouldn't you?”—JS“When you’re on the buyer's side…asking those pricing and cost questions up-front—even if your person isn’t bringing them forward—makes the working relationship so much better.”—RM“It might be an opportunity for you to learn on the job, but you should give them some kind of picture of how long you think it would take so they can at least have an estimated price.”—JS“When I heard ‘I worked those hours and you owe me’ that told me their mindset was an employee mindset versus a business owner mindset.”—RM“Never accept ‘I have no idea’ as an answer.”—JS“We want to be business owners, perhaps partners in what they're doing. We don't want to be a vendor, and we don't want to be an employee.”—RM“If you are a commando type and you are the person that they call when they don't know who to call, you can be dropped behind enemy lines and come away with a win.”—JS“When you don't know something, that’s your opportunity to move up the food chain.”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

How the emotions they’re experiencing impact how they perceive you and the choices you’re offering.Why you can charge more (and sell faster) when you’re referred by someone your buyer trusts.Why your buyer compares your price to something totally different (a car, a trip, a fill-in-the-blank).How your buyer thinks about the increments between your price tags (and how to apply that to your pricing model).Why some buyers will pay more for speed—and how to set yourself as their premium choice.Quotables“There can be a whole bunch of emotions wrapped around the delivery.”—JS“We didn't ask what it cost—we didn't care.”—RM“Bob can charge a lot more than the next person who does what Bob does because you got a referral...If you didn't get a referral, you're Googling for a generic category or solution.”—JS“When they gave us the final number and the guy was out of earshot, I looked at my husband and said ‘well, that was a weekend away’.”—R“They purposely put you in a scenario where you're highly likely to say yes to anything reasonable.”—JS “The fact that they were so specialized…and so prepared for whatever happened —I was impressed with them (and would buy again).”—RM“There's a very small list of things that would not be like this—where you've got a problem, you want it fixed, and the faster it gets fixed, the more you're willing to pay.”—JS“It was like magic.”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

The four aspects of being a soloist that you’ll want to consciously examine now—and revisit over time.How to discover whether you’re a good candidate to hire employees for your business.Setting financial goals for your business and deciding where your “enough” lies.Incorporating time off into your work life (and the magic of boundary setting) in a way that fits your personal vision.Building the right amount of flexibility—for you—into how you work, where you work and when you work.RESOURCESRochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | TwitterQuotables“Being a soloist is awesome…it allows you to have some dreams that would be really hard to achieve when you're working for somebody else.”—RM“If you don't have your objectives defined or the vision for what these four things are going to look like in the future, then it's really difficult to decide what to do.”—JS“Ask yourself: Do I enjoy the idea of leading employees? Do I want to inspire them? Do I want to show them how to do things? Do I want to mentor them? Do I want to listen when they have issues?”—RM“Once you replace your salary, then it's like, all right, do I need more and/or how much more do I want?”—JS “There comes this point where you start to look at the future and you think, ‘I'm gonna do this for the next 20 years?’”—RM“It's not like you need to alert the media and be like, ‘Okay, I'm not answering email between these hours or on these days.’”—JS“If you don't think about the intention for your business, if you don't examine it, then it's easy to let your business start to run you instead of the other way around.”—RM “How much time do I want away from doing client work—doing delivery—so that I can either work on the business or play with the kids?”—JS LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

Shifting your mindset from “I must be a guru” to “I want to contribute to the conversation”.Battling imposter syndrome and perfectionism by thinking about expertise from your prospective clients’ point of view.Adopting the consulting mindset of “I’m here to help” vs. “I’m awesome at this”.How to speak up and contribute to your ideal audience long before you feel like an expert or an authority.Quotables“I try to point out to people that if you know way more about your area of expertise than your ideal buyer, then as far as they're concerned, you are an expert.”—JS“If you're earlier in your career when you go out on your own, you can think ‘Oh, who am I to call myself an expert?’”—RM“The reason I started thinking about perfectionism along with imposter syndrome is because you can combat those things by helping.”—JS“Is the guy who does my WordPress site the world's expert on WordPress? I doubt it. But I don't care because he gets whatever I need done.”—RM“’I'm here to help’ versus ‘I'm awesome at this’ is like automatically going to put you in more of a service posture, more of a consultative mode.”—JS“If you never say no, you're not a consultant.”—RM“When you show up, it's not about pitching or seeing how smart you are or anything like that. It's about finding out if you can help.”—JS“If you don't have a comparable level of expertise with somebody else—say the “guru”—that doesn't mean you don't have plenty of value to add to the conversation.”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

How years of conditioning have wired our brains to believe that more and/or harder work is always better than “sloth”.What happens when you move away from billable hours, where more work=more money.The importance of building some structure—for example a system for lead generation—so you’re always “gardening” whether your business is in a peak or valley.Why you want to hold a big picture vision beyond your business to keep you grounded and focused.RESOURCESRochelle | Email List | Soloist Women | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | TwitterQuotables“It's not uncommon for people to be like, ‘I could never not be working like ALL the time.’”—JS“We've been sold with this idea that if you're not booked that you are failing.”—RM“You could be doing well, but if you don't know where your next client is coming from, that's not a great feeling.”—JS“You want to find that balance of how much lead generation you need to do on a regular basis. That becomes your system—and you work the system.”—RM “If you're complaining about how busy you are, then that's a sign that you don't want to be that busy.”—JS“We have a different version of what’s “enough”, but some people don't have any version. Like ‘it's never enough’ is their version.”—RM“If busy-ness isn't making you happy, then you know what monster you need to slay.”—JS“The gift of having a business like ours…is that we have to reinvent ourselves because at some point, there is a sea change around us and…we have the opportunity to change before it takes effect.”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter 

Three ways to scale your business with employees (and when it makes sense for them to be contractors instead).How to think about and map your monetization strategy when you have employees—and why cash flow is queen.What to do instead when you think it’s time to hire your first salesperson. The four steps to create personal leverage in your core business—with or without employees.Why your business deserves to be structured so you can live and work in your genius zone.Quotables“Hiring employees is held up like a milestone in the journey of every entrepreneur.”—JS“Having employees changes how you think about your business day to day.”—RM“Minimees are inexperienced versions of yourself where you're gonna mark up their time, bill them out and make the profit off of that.”—JS“(When you’re thinking of hiring) you first want to map out your monetization strategy.”—RM“If you're billing by the hour, just shut this episode off because what we're gonna talk about next is how to deliver more with less work.”—JS“You can hire a whole bunch of employees and go broke five times faster than you would otherwise.”—RM“What would you be considering hiring employees for? It's always because you think they're gonna create leverage…to make your business better.”—JS“I always wanted my employees to make plenty of money because it meant we were all really successful…I paid them based on the outcomes they met, and we could all make a lot of money.”—RM LINKSRochelle | Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramJonathan | Daily List | Website  | Ditcherville | LinkedIn | Twitter