TRANSCRIPTION

Intro 0:00 You're tuning into the Still minimum wage podcast with your host, Courtney Fifa and Sam. We are three creative entrepreneurs who met during a group coaching program and started a podcast so that we could share all of our struggles, talk about all the real and the raw of owning a creative business. Each week, someone's going to step into the hot seat and we're going to get coached by our other two buddies on the call. We love talking about business, marketing, systems, and getting organized and what does it look like to finally build a business that pays you a little bit more than minimum wage.

Sam 0:42 You're listening to the still minimum wage podcast! If you've been tuning in so far, you've known that in the past three episodes we've been doing kind of like a two on one coaching session with one of our hosts where we tackle a common issue that that person is struggling with at the time. In this episode, we're going to do a roundtable discussing the topic of not knowing what we're doing in business ... and maybe a little bit in life too. So no matter where you're at in your business, whether you just started 30 days ago or yesterday, or you've been at it for a couple of months still trying to figure things out. There's always a point where you'll probably question like, 'what am I doing or what should I be doing right now?' And so this is an open conversation between Courtney, Fifa and I, Sam, about where we're at right now in our business. We're a little over almost a year, collectively. And so ... let's open up the conversation!

Courtney 1:47 I feel like every two-three months, I will literally be asking myself, 'what am I doing?' And it's usually when obviously I'm not getting a lot of calls and I feel like I'm just struggling to make money. Or you know, a couple calls that I do have don't convert. And emotionally, I feel very insecure in my business. But I shared previously there's a lot of, like, fear with even sharing that but that thought, 'I don't know what I'm doing' comes up pretty frequently, especially in that first year.

Sam 2:29 I felt that way about my marketing and it was kind of like... a disappointing realisation because in my whole career as a graphic designer I also kind of consider myself a marketing expert. Like I understood how to promote things but for some reason when it came to my own business, I was like... so confused at what I was supposed to do. And then you know, the topic of a lead generation and niching and like targeting your audience ... I was like what? I really felt like I only understood the visual part of marketing and I would be crippled by the idea of what are like, emails sequences, what is nurturing? Like, what is that stuff?

Fifa 3:21 For me it's ... I really pivoted a lot, multiple times because I'm so used to pivoting projects every time like over the past three years. Like I've probably done over 13+ different projects or different side hustles. So for me, I'm just so used to pivoting all the time and trying different things that it's kind of weird right now to be just sticking to one thing and going all for it. So ... it's- it's tough like I am still trying to figure everything out and trying to stop myself from starting any other new projects so that I don't overwhelm myself. But the struggle is always there and I feel like I can never know enough and sometimes I don't even know what to focus on. And when I don't see the results coming in as great as I thought it would be, that's when I always start questioning myself like, am I doing the right thing? Am I focusing on the right things? Maybe some ... maybe I need to revise and really reflect back again on everything. So I do that every few months.

Sam 4:32 I think based on what the three of us shared. Collectively... the consensus is that every few months, we're kind of reassessing where we're at in business. What's working and what's not working. And I think it's fair to say that most of the time we feel like it's not necessarily working? Would that be accurate?

Courtney 4:55 I'm laughing because it's so accurate.

Sam 4:58 And that's okay, right? Because we're still in business. Let's applaud ourselves because like we haven't thrown in the towel, we're not like looking for jobs. So we're still here, but full transparency, we're not like -we don't feel like rockstars right now.

Courtney 5:15 No, we're like still just making minimum wage if that's - some months maybe not even that.

Sam 5:21 Yeah, and that's why part of the reason we created this podcast is because this is the reality. There are a couple of, you know, headline stories out there of people who were able to "make it" in X amount of time. But I think the realistic story that is not necessarily flashy is that... listen, you can be in months, six months, 12, and you can still be trying to figure it out and finding your place in the marketplace.

Courtney 5:50 You bring up such a good point. For me, especially as a coach, right? A lot of coaches will talk about, 'I made X amount of money in X amount of time.' And the pressure that I put on myself is, 'alright if I'm a good coach, I need to make that happen for my clients.' Right? But what reality is, is what a lot of my clients go through is probably more similar to what we've all experienced with pivoting. And I realise that, sometimes what you get out of coaching is clarity, which tells you that you need to be doing be doing something different from what you're doing. It's not always going to be like, 'Okay just do this same thing and go faster,' There should probably be a lot of like overhauling and finding all of the holes in your thinking and your process. And I'm a planner! I know that you guys are too. Sam especially is also a planner where we like to map out things. Storytime.. From our group coaching program and then the last conversations I had with our coach was to show her my marketing plan. And like, it was- I put it together like you know I can put together a marketing plan like nobody's business. But the execution of it is something totally different and all I wanted was for her to tell me, 'if you do all of these things, you will make money.' Just follow the plan. And I did! And I did not make that much money but that was when I pivoted from social media management into coaching because you guys told me like, that's actually what you want to do. It's a better fit for your market so just jump in! Then the next couple of thousands dollars I made was like, through coaching which was way more aligned. But you know it's not for lack of having a plan, there's just a lot of other things that are going to be in play. Which, you know, if you're listening and you feel like, 'I had a plan, this isn't working and this must mean that I suck.' No, that's -that's not what it means and that's actually maybe pretty common coming out of a coaching program. Do you have a plan? And then you need to figure out what actually works and there'll be plenty of things that don't work.

Fifa 8:00 I think you really have to be open to the idea that not everything you put out is going to work. And it's ... like the mindset that I have even if things don't work out is I always tell myself that everything happens for a reason. To teach me a specific lesson that I might have not learned yet and I'm ... I'm quite a spiritual person. I've only become like this because I got into entrepreneurship and it's only been about like a year or so that I really started diving into like, you know, The Law of Attraction and all that stuff. But with that philosophy, I've been going by it for some time and I really feel like no matter what happens, something good is always going to come out of it. And every thing is a lesson, right? And so ... it doesn't make me feel so bad when things don't work out because then I can still continue moving forward. I just have to reflect back on it once in a while and see what's working and what's not. What should I be focusing on? And it really helps when you hire a coach because then they can see the things that you can't and then they can tell you, 'Okay, like maybe you could try this.' Because sometimes we're so stuck in our minds and we're always on the hamster wheel. We don't stop and we don't think about what we should be doing to really improve our business. Like, we don't put on our CEO hat a lot of the times because most of the times when you're still starting out in your business, you have all the hats. And you have not really outsourced some of the stuff that you need to so that you can focus on moving the business forward. So ... I really think that it's important to put on that CEO hat every week or so and actually make the strategic decisions on how you can move your business forward.

Sam 10:03 Okay so knowing what we know in our past year experience with all the ups and downs, what would you tell yourself 3-6 months ago to do? What was the one AHA that got you out of that bog of confusion? So if you were to pick out one piece of action that you took that kind of made things more clear, what would that be?

Courtney 10:31 It's a little cliche, even though the last six months were challenging. I don't know that there's a lot that I would do different like I don't think that I would have gotten to the point where I am knowing I don't actually want to do social media management. I don't actually want to work with these clients. I think what I would have told myself is to keep working with a coach that can give me feedback especially on the areas where I feel really insecure. Or I feel like... I have one thing in mind but to basically help me not hold to that too loosely. For myself, I think one of the key pivots that's happening is letting go of my niche a little bit and opening it up. Actually, I'm going to change my answer. From our episode about still not an ideal client, we talked about how a niche often is described as a specific industry that you specialise in. But actually it can be like a type of person or a type of like a size of business and I would have told myself to not be so invested in one industry like weddings and events even though I love it. But to look more at like the common type of problems that I can fix with my services.

Sam 11:58 That's great Courtney! Cuz' like you do love the wedding industry. I know that was hard for you to let go.

Courtney 12:04 I do! But at the end of the day you know, with this year being what it is it's like, people in events are still struggling and it's like not coming back and... you know I had told myself, like, oh when it does come back it's gonna be poppin! But there are other people that I want to work with too and I actually have worked with a lot of them. So while I still love it, it's not that I'm missing out on it, I'm just refocusing it from being like I worked with wedding people to working with multi passionate creatives that are solopreneurs.

Sam 12:38 So I think one objection that's going to come up for our listeners with your suggestion to work with a coach is obviously ... listen, I just -I'm not making money, how do I work with a coach?

Fifa 12:50 I would say ... for that, because I was in that boat before. And I ... I went all in when I decided to work with a coach and I was moving to like one of the most expensive cities in Canada as well. So ... for me the mindset was when I got fired from my job, I... decided that I didn't want to go back because I really really wanted to see how it would be like freelancing and see if I can actually survive freelancing. And so, I decided, like I already had debt and I just decided to go all in on a coach so that I could get that clarity that I wanted. Obviously, you think that you're going to get the results right away when you get a coach but it's different for everybody. For me, I didn't have the foundation of, like, the systems and all the stuff to be able to scale a successful business. Like I didn't- I knew nothing about running a business I was freelancing on and off and trying to see what worked and I never had the guidance. I would just look at books, I would read articles and I was seeking outside information but I never had somebody tell me, 'Okay, you need to sit down. You need to work on your mindset. You need to answer these hard questions I'm going to ask you right now.' And so ... for me, I knew my coach before already and I knew what she was capable of in bringing results for her other clients. So for me I just went all in knowing that I was going to be growing as a result of putting that money in. I knew that no matter what happened, there was still something that was going to come out of it. So I guess it's kind of like tying to the same idea before where you always just got to think positive and everything that happens is a lesson learned. For me it's really like, I knew that something was going to come out of it no matter if, you know, I wasn't going to make the results that I wanted to see right away. But I knew that eventually I would and knowing that all the books that I read kept telling me 'mindset is everything,' 'you need to invest in your mindset.' The fact that she helped me with that specifically before even helping me figuring out systems and all that stuff, that's when I decided to go all in. Even if I had debt, even if I had just moved from another city and lost my job. The fact that I knew that I was going to learn from it. That was enough for me to make that jump into hiring a coach.

Sam 15:37 I had a similar experience where my friend, who I now work with in collaboration is a coach, and I joined her mastermind back in October 2018. And the price was a lot for what I was making. I was babysitting and like half my babysitting money was paying my bills and so I really didn't have the extra funds to be investing in a program. But I believed in my friend and she had results. Like I literally watched her go from zero to six figure entrepreneur so definitely vet a coach that you're considering and watch them for a while before. Don't fall into the hole of their marketing, the current launch of the time. Like, if you just met them, go through their launch content and just kind of sit on that. I know they say to take action now but like, you really want to make sure it's the right coach because if it's not, then you investing is, is not going to be worth the same as if it was the right coach. And so... to Fifa's point it's not gonna happen overnight. The coach containers are between like three to six months. It's probably not going to happen for you in that because there's so much to learn. And there's no way they can teach you everything that they did to make six figures in that small container. You're just gonna have to take a little bit of nuggets they can kind of do and especially the mindset work because that is a big factor. I had told my boyfriend, "Listen, I'm gonna invest X amount of money and if I just make one client after this mastermind, I've made my money back." But the truth is, I was planning, planning, planning in that mastermind that my first package is going to be 5k or like I'll get two clients I'll have a 10k month instantly. But listen, I didn't have a niche. I didn't have my it-factor which now is Instagram branding. I didn't have that, I just thought I was selling branding. There was no clear value there. And so ... I definitely am a strong proponent of hiring a coach but know that that's an investment that's not going to pay off for a while. Alternatively you can think about opening a retail store versus an online store where there's still costs to starting that business. Things like rent, interior design, and initial inventory. And so you're still going to be in debt opening up a retail store so I wouldn't hesitate too much on like, 'oh my gosh, that's a lot of money' because if you were going to open up a real store it's the same thing. It's just the return is different.

Fifa 18:24 I think a lot of people have that fear of just jumping in but they don't think about what they're going to essentially get out of it. Like knowing that the money is eventually going to come back to them if they put in the work. So.... it's, of course it's a lot of fear for sure for people to just step in they're like, 'Oh that's a lot of money upfront, I don't know.' But for me, I view debt differently. It really is a mindset thing. I'm not afraid of debt and I come from a background where debt is... you know, it's always been lingering around. My family, my mom is afraid of that, like, she's like ... Because she used to run a restaurant and she went bankrupt, right? So that's like a really big thing and she's always really stingy with her money. She's like, 'okay, you got to save your money. Don't waste it on this, don't waste it on that.' And I really had to break through that because I did not want to feel like I would have that kind of relationship with money so it's really the mindset around money itself. You have to really change that mindset and think like, okay, money is just energy. And debt is not as bad as it sounds. The moment you change your mindset around that, it's not your- you won't be afraid anymore to invest in yourself. Also you ... you live through life trying to find your purpose and trying to always be growing. Well, hopefully, I hope you're doing that but not everybody does. But if you are running a business and you really want to skip those months or years of trial and error like I did over the last three years, then I would say you have to take that money and you have to invest in yourself to learn from somebody that's already done it. Because then you can just save so much time going through all that trial and error and losing money because the moment I went to hire that coach, she really helped me set the foundation of everything. And I went ahead after... I guess I only made back the investment maybe seven or eight months later down the road. And it's funny because I invested in a group coaching program, the one that all three of us met in. I invested in her shortly afterwards. So, I didn't even make back the investment of my first coach but I knew that I really wanted to scale a design business and I wanted to learn how to properly run specifically a design business and she was the expert in that. And I needed that at the time so I'm like, 'You know what? Let me just go all in on that as well and then I know at the end of the year or next year, I'm going to make that money back.' Like no matter what, you have to change that mindset of fear into thinking like, 'Okay no matter what, you're always going to get through it.' And just think of it as a lesson learned like you're not going to like die because you've made this decision or anything. All of those things, all of those thoughts in our minds, I find what helps is just writing everything down and seeing what can come out of it. And really trying to diminish those fears by asking yourself questions like, 'Okay, what is the reality of it? Is this really going to happen?' And most of the time, it doesn't happen. So that could be an exercise that you could try doing.

Sam 22:12 Yeah, I don't know who said it before but money is just energy, especially if you have a job that's helping you pay your bills right now. You have to think of it as, that money is always going to be there. It's replenishing. And so by you just putting it in your savings and just sitting on it, or saying like, 'Oh no, it would be better used for something else.' I urge you to consider the alternative. That money is replenishing and it's gonna go somewhere. Money is not meant to sit on. It's not making money in your bank account let's, let's be real, like there's no interest high enough to do that. For me in my experience, I'm like, 'Oh, I'm not going to invest in this thing. It's too much. I'll just save it.' But if I'm honest with myself that probably just ended up going to food anyway. You know? Or like something else or like, this little electronic that was a little bit less pricey than a program that I was looking into. But still, it's still money nonetheless. And did I really need that thing? Did I really need that $50 course? Or should I have invested that into a more strategic, one on one or group coaching kind of thing? I just think the sooner you invest, the sooner that you would see the return. It won't be like the next day but if you're sitting on your money, the longer it'll take for you to get somewhere, right,? Because you're not moving.

Courtney 23:35 Yeah, that's a really good point. To go back to your original callout out though. If you're really struggling and you don't, if you just realistically can't invest. You know, maybe you're in a situation where you're just making it day by day. You can put together your own mastermind. Be active in Facebook groups. So you know, what you're not investing with money, you're gonna have to invest in time to make connections. And if you're in the boat where you're still trying to find your first client, just know you're going to have to invest time to build up a portfolio of your work and up your results through beta clients where you're not going to get paid what you want to. But if you do a great job, you can walk away with results. But again, you're going to have to invest that time. But look for people that you respect and are growing their business. Maybe they're a little bit further along with you but you connect on a mindset level in terms of how you look at business and just build those relationships organically. Then, you can do what we've done or, you know, some people pay thousands of dollars for a mastermind like this. And I mean, we were able to find each other because we invested in the same coach so that just sped up the process of finding people that are like-minded. But now, there's this app called Clubhouse which we haven't talked about too much but as of right now you can go onto that app and just listen to tons of coaches that are just dropping their knowledge in many different rooms on different topics. And so to Sam's point about listening in and not just responding to marketing for a coach, you can start to see who do you vibe with, binge their content. Look at their business. You might also just find other people that you could be in a mastermind with. So that's not something that we had because clubhouse just came out in like October, November. But it's something that I've seen a lot of people get connected with. And you can tell who also is like generous with their information and so if you're a generous person, you want to work with someone that's like that also.

Sam 25:45 So we're gonna wrap up this conversation I think we have a lot of good gold nuggets in there. Is there any last minute thoughts ladies?

Courtney 25:54 My last thought is for those of you who feel like you're struggling and you're not sure. This season, it's kind of like going through a long tunnel. It's gonna maybe be dark for a little bit but if you keep moving forward, you're gonna eventually hit the end of the tunnel where you're going to have that light and have that clarity. I've definitely been through that. But if you just keep moving forward even if it's two steps back one step forward, you're gonna eventually reach the end and see that light where you want to be

Sam 26:21 My last thought is if you're in the scheme of creative entrepreneurship, obviously you like to create. But, entrepreneurship is business. So you have to really want this for yourself and not for the money but for yourself. Like you want to prove to yourself that you can make this happen. You can find a calling that is yours on your terms and you can make an impact on your terms. This is not about get rich quick. This is not about being cool and popular. You have a gift and you just thought to create your own path and your own story of sharing that gift with the world. And so... if you're struggling, just have that grit and persistence and belief in yourself that this is what you're meant to do. And you're just gonna figure it out along the way.

Fifa 27:24 And for me it's really, don't be afraid to take risks. Obviously, calculated risks. You don't have to do what I did and just like randomly, like, well, go all in on a coach. But for me I'm just, I've developed that perseverance I guess through all of those years that I've tried all of these different things and accumulated the risk taking, muscle. I don't know how you can put it. But don't be afraid to just go all in sometimes and just go with your intuition as well. Sometimes you need to listen to that and not listen to what other people have to say about it. Since I started risk taking more, my life has completely changed so it can definitely work for you. It's just a matter of trying to think things through a little more and if you feel it in your gut, then I'd say just go for it because a lot of the time you're in your head all the time and you just need to get out of your head and go for it.

Sam 28:27 Okay so with that being said, we hope you learn something new in this episode. We're gonna go switch it over to our free resource of the week! Each episode we share one free resource to help our fellow creative entrepreneur move ahead faster and more efficiently in their business in this week's resource is...

Fifa 28:48 Clubhouse! You probably might have heard about all the rage around this new app but basically right now, it's in beta mode. It is an app that is voice-only. No video, no nothing like, you just have to get on this app and you can get into all these different rooms with various different topics depending on your interest, and you can meet a lot of different people. So, based on what we've talked about, it really is important to surround yourself with like minded people. And using clubhouse, you can find a lot of the people in these rooms and they are very, very open with their resources and sharing information like Courtney said. So definitely try this out. There's a lot of nuggets, if you find the right rooms and you can meet so many different people in this app that could even be leads for your business as well. It's a great marketing tool and a great way to make connections, so definitely check this out.

Sam 29:50 So clubhouse is actually iOS platform only for now. So you can access it via your iPhone and your iPad. And if you want to check us out and follow us on Clubhouse, our links will be in the description below. This concludes our episode of the still minimum wage podcast. Thank you for listening! If you learned something, we'd love to know what that is. Leave us a comment in the review!