"Other people have had these same thoughts and you don't have to, you know, just go down the path you're supposed to because everybody thinks you should." - Chad Barger

Breaking the Mold: Chad Barger’s Non-Traditional Fundraising Consulting Business

Get ready to hear some juicy confessions on this episode of the Confessions Podcast as we sit down with Chad Barger, a fundraising consultant who's decided to keep his business a one-man show. Chad shared his secrets to work-life balance, including how he manages to take intentional time off and keep his workload under control. He also dishes on the challenges of growth and staying focused and giving out his killer advice for fellow consultants on how to build a business that doesn't make them want to pull their hair out.

If you're a consultant looking to tune out the noise of what you "should" be doing and build a unique and quirky business that stands out, then you won't want to miss this episode.

Highlights:

• How to navigate the transition from freelancer to a business of one

• Chad’s strategic growth as a solopreneur

• The importance of taking intentional time off and prioritizing work-life harmony

• Leveraging speaking and webinars

• Building a business you enjoy

Connect with Chad Barger: 

Chad Barger (Linkedin): https://www.linkedin.com/in/chadbarger

Chad Barger (Instagram): https://www.instagram.com/fundraiserchad/?hl=en

Productive Fundraising (Website): https://productivefundraising.com/

Find Us Online:  https://www.confessionswithjessandcindy.com/

Connect with Cindy:

Cindy Wagman Coaching https://cindywagman.com/

The Good Partnership https://www.thegoodpartnership.com/

Connect with Jess: 

Out In the Boons: https://www.outintheboons.me

Transcript:

00:00:00 Cindy: Welcome to the Confessions Podcast. I'm Cindy Wagman.

00:00:03 Jess: And I'm Jess Campbell. We're two former in-house nonprofit pros turned coaches and consultants to purpose-driven organizations.

00:00:11 Cindy: After years of building up our separate six figure businesses from scratch, we've thrown a lot of spaghetti at the wall and have lived to see what sticks.

00:00:20 Jess: We're on a mission to help other non-profit coaches and consultants looking to start or scale their own businesses past the six figure mark by pulling back the curtain.

00:00:30 Cindy: Whether you're still working inside a nonprofit and thinking of one day going out on your own or you've been running your consulting business for years, you understand that working with nonprofits is just different. We're giving you access to the business leaders who serve nonprofits as their clients. You know the people who truly get it.

00:00:52 Jess: No more gatekeeping, no more secrets. This podcast is going to give you an inside look at what running a successful nonprofit coaching and consulting business looks like. Basically, we're asking people how much money they make, how they get paid, and what has and hasn't worked in their businesses.

00:01:11 Cindy: Listen in as these leaders share their insights, their numbers, and the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to building a nonprofit coaching or consulting business. We're gonna empower you to make the power moves that give you the income and freedom you set out to create from day one.

00:01:28 Jess: You ready? Let's go.

00:01:31 Cindy: So Chad, when we met in person recently, you told me that you very intentionally were not growing a team, that you wanted to be a business of one. Do you remember when you made that decision or sort of like released yourself from the expectations of that growth?

00:01:52 Chad: Not specifically, but I can talk a little bit about the process. You know, when you first start and you go on your own, it's freelancer and you are a one, and then, you know, the workload comes up a little bit and start thinking, oh, do I want somebody do... I don't. And I had been managing a small team pretty much my whole career and I was just kind of over it. You know, I wanted to do the fundraising and help people with fundraising and frankly not deal with a lot of drama and all the things that come with managing people. And so I stayed small and just had referral partners, but then I kept getting this question like when are you gonna hire? When are you gonna grow? How big are you gonna make your firm? And I just kind of started getting mad, like I like just being me and having great people I send work to and they do the breadth, same thing back. Actually stumbled across this book called Company of One by Paul Jarvis. And it just has this great mindset of not growth for the sake of growth, not growth because that's what we're supposed to do, but being very strategic in thinking through that and just really focused. And that was when it was freeing and it was like, okay, other people have had these same thoughts and you don't have to just go down the path you're supposed to because everybody thinks you should.

00:03:13 Cindy: Hmm. Yeah. I call it a vortex. We kind of got sucked into like what we expect or what people expect of us. So that's such a great perspective. To start off with, Chad, welcome to the podcast. We're so excited to have you. Let's just take a step back and do you mind introducing yourself and what you do?

00:03:35 Chad: Sure thing. My name's Chad Barger. I'm a career long fundraiser. It's all I've ever done. Got the bug early, while I was in college and entered right in the nonprofit sector in higher ed, annual giving work. From there, I had a 20 year frontline career, mostly in museums, the arts from there and like most of us kind of fell into consulting work. I was an AFP chapter president and started doing some speaking and then when you speak they say, well, you come work with us one-on-one. And got really lucky to be able to do kind of half and half for a couple years. So, scaled myself down to part-time in the business. Actually in my job I was an executive director for a United Arts Fund at the time. Just took that down to working with the board and doing major gifts work and then built my business and my book on the side for about two years before. Just got too big and had to make the decision, give up the dream job to try this entrepreneurship thing or just stay there forever. So now it's I'm about four years in from full-time.

00:04:42 Jess: Okay, nice. You have so much overlap with Cindy in how she got started as a fundraiser as well. That was kind of funny. You don't find a lot of people--

00:04:50 Chad: I think it's a pretty common tale cause like nobody dreams of being a fundraising consultant when they start out, you know.

00:04:55 Jess: Yeah. So find it in college and--

00:04:57 Cindy: Yeah, cuz I also started knew I wanted to fundraise when I was in university, which there aren't many people like us, so...

00:05:04 Jess: No, no.

00:05:03 Chad: Especially like 20 years ago. I think it's a little more common now, but,

00:05:07 Jess: Maybe. Maybe. Okay. So Chad, what does your present day business look like? Like how do you get paid?

00:05:14 Chad: Yeah, that's really evolved. I mean it started first go out, you'll take anything like, you know, oh, you want me to do this, this report? Sure. Grants, I hate writing grants, but okay. You know, thankfully now that it's grown I'd be able to really focus on what I wanna do and what I like to do. And I think that's part of the process too. You gotta do it before you figure out what you really don't like. So for me, I hate writing reports. I never liked grant writing. I always outsourced that as soon as I could. The worst job for me is like a development assessment. Like come look at everything we do and gimme this 20 page report that says what we should or shouldn't do. I don't mind the discovery work, but I hate writing that darn report, so I don't write reports.

00:05:55 Chad: Most of my work is training and coaching. So I love, I love speaking, I love training. I'm a old high school marching band geek and I say speaking is kind of like that. It's a rehearsed performance and you get that adrenaline high still. So not having to wear the dorky wool uniform. But so speak and train, that's about a quarter of my business. Have a coaching group of coaching clients, a couple different programs, that's another quarter. And then I teach as adjunct faculty at two colleges. Do have an online program for Temple University and a local small Christian school, Messiah University near us teach their fundraising course. So that's about a quarter. And then the kind of this quarter of referral slash affiliate slash sponsor kind of hodgepodge, you know, working with our vendor friends and all of that.

00:06:44 Okay, cool. So as we were talking, I was thinking through the intentionality around wanting to just be a solo practitioner and not having a team to help support you or you know, do some of the work under you or all these things. And it made me think about like client attraction, marketing, sales, like do you enjoy that side of your business? Does that come really naturally to you? I feel like a lot of consultants, that's one of the first things they try and outsource or gain support on. Same thought process went through keeping organized and attention to detail. Is that your sweet spot? And so, you know, managing your inbox and doing your bookkeeping and all these things like, I guess I'm curious as to what your known strengths are or are you sitting in the seat where you're like, Nope, it's more important to me just to be a solo practitioner and I'm just gonna do all the things?

00:07:40 Chad: No, I definitely have the skillset that I think makes that more doable. I'm a big personal productivity nerd. I have like really not dialed in systems. I read like getting things done when I was 17, you know, I'm just kind of always been wired this way. And I actually do a fair amount of productivity training too, as some of the speaking. So yeah, that's there. I like build the system, you know, all the automations, all the tools, Zappier, you know, all that stuff. I like that kind of techy dig in, build it once, automate it, that type of thing. And then, you know, certain things I will send out. I have a like 10 hour a week virtual assistant, she'll just kind of be doing, you know, like putting things in spreadsheets. It's something that I can't automate that I shouldn't be using my time, but I don't really call it a team member, you know, it kind of can change from time to time. It's just, you know, another person that helps me out and elsewhere some work too.

00:08:34 Cindy: Awesome. We are very similar in terms of like skillsets and yeah, very similar. So talk to me a little bit about like how much are you working you... before we started recording you mentioned that you take two sort of sabbaticals during the year. So let's talk, we can call it work-life balance or what are you gonna call it, but like--

00:09:59 Chad: harmony

00:09:00 Cindy: What do you call it?

00:09:00 Chad: Work-life harmony.

00:09:02 Cindy: Harmony. I love that.

00:09:03 Chad: Cause it's never in balance, you know.

00:09:03 Cindy: Yeah, no, but it's---

00:09:05 Chad: It just needs to be able to go back and forth.

00:09:07 Cindy: Yeah. And it's intention, right? What are your intentions with your time? So talk to us a little bit about how your decision to keep your business without growing a team and to keep it, you know, I don't wanna say small because I don't think it necessarily means small, but just like small team, what does that do for the rest of your life and yeah. All the other things that are important to you.

00:09:31 Chad: Well, I think it kind of, that mindset also bleeds into creating this, you know, I don't have to do everything. I don't have to do all the things. If I focus and do them really well then I don't have to work 80 hours a week. Now granted the first couple years when you're just launching and you're working a lot to make it happen. But now that I've settled in, I work in pretty standard week. I'm an early bird, so I'm usually like six o'clock kind of getting it going and, but by like 2:00-2:30, the brain is dead. So like I don't like to present like that last slot at a conference like, uh oh, that's just horrible. I'd much rather have the after lunch coma slot than that one. So yeah, that's kinda like my Monday through Thursday and then Friday, it's really kind of get up, wrap up the week, go through my review process, and then I like to get to the woods and I'm a big hiker and that is when all the magic happens.

00:10:27 Chad: When I get out there with no inputs and just think that's when all the ideas come, like I call it synthesizing time, like just your brain has no inputs coming and actually has a chance to piece things together. So all of my business ideas been out there. I will only even look at my phone cuz I don't want distracted. I keep a little notebook in my pocket to scribble down, you know, whatever that magic that happens that week. It doesn't always happen. But that's kind of an ideal week for me. And then the sabbatical piece, I find that after pushing hard for about six months, I just need to turn it off, turn the brain off a little bit. Reset should take some time, you know, for some personal growth and reading and those kinds of things.

00:11:05 Chad: And you know, while family vacations are great, they don't really do that cuz there's stress involved there too. I mean I have two teenage boys and you know, it's just a lot. So I need time for me. So usually, I'll kind of while or find... there's two times a year where coaching clients don't necessarily want to talk to me and it's end of fiscal year, which for many is June 30th. And then end of calendar year. So about June 15th, things start to get naturally quiet. So I'll kind of go into sabbatical mode there, you know, I'm still keeping up with email, urgent things. I'm not putting on the honor of office, but you know, I go from working a full day to maybe a two hour day or something like that. And then I usually lump in the family vacation on the end of that into to mid-July. And then same thing end of the year, around December 15th, you know, everybody's year end plans are in place. They don't wanna talk to me, they wanna do holiday stuff and then the year just starts off slow too, till everybody gets back in. So kind of December 15th and January 15th is kind of the same way. Not totally turned off, but definitely not, you know, the all in time.

00:12:10 Jess: Yeah. Okay. So I mean, that's an amazing, first of all, as you guys are listening to this, I'm just a little laughing because I feel like Chad and Cindy are two twin flames with like how they operate and their systems and their early bird and productivity. You guys probably look like dream of spreadsheets. So taking calculated risks while Jess is over here just winging it. just kidding. But what I'm thinking about is like, okay, how incredible that you have this intentionality around these sabbaticals and these long breaks. You go hard for six months, you take a break. But I'm also thinking of how then are you maintaining consistent client work? And one of the things that you said during the beginning is that about a fourth of your business comes from partners, I think, or I'm not sure if that's referrals. So like, talk to us about how you network and maintain relationships with your fellow referral partners.

00:13:09 Chad: Yeah, that's very intentional too. You know, there's... I do some time blocking on the calendar so there's sponsor time blocks of, you know, if I have something to do, great. If not, I'm just gonna, haven't I talked to in a while and kind of keep that relationship going and from there. And as far as the coaching and, and maintaining that, so I have monthly calls with folks so I can kind of just slightly shift things. Usually going into a sabbatical, I'll do their call a little early, which they never complain about, you know, oh, I get it's three weeks instead of four and I can just shift people that way. The hardest part about, it's like coming out a sabbatical, it's like instantly go, go, go cause like everybody's due for a call and I have the energy for it, but those first weeks are always a little challenging.

00:13:51 Chad: So, but yeah, it's if I showed you my schedule, most people freak out because it's literally all blocked, you know, there's colors and it's just making sure things get done. That whole piece of being a company of one difficult, difficult balance between working on the business and working in the business, it's very easy to spend all of my time in the business. And then, you know, no development happens, no networking happens, no new relationships. So just being very, very cognizant of that.

00:14:25 Cindy: That's awesome.

00:14:25 Chad: Usually I'll do like mornings in and afternoons on, but doesn't always work that way.

00:14:30 Cindy: Cool. So one of the things I hear a lot from consultants where they are just a solo, you know, just them, a single single shingle, what do they call it anyways, is that concern around earning capacity and just like, you know, paying for like swapping time for dollars, right? And you mentioned when you started consulting more as a freelancer, it was very much like, I'm just gonna take any work. So tell us a little bit about that journey from being like, actually, you know, and actually I'm super curious, like how do you think about your earning potential? How do you think about what you charge? Do you charge a premium because you only take on a certain amount of work? Or how do you think about that? How do you think about what your pricing and your goals around finances?

00:15:29 Chad: Yeah. That's always been a challenge. I think that's a challenge for any consultant, especially starting out. I'll kind of take that two ways. First kind of the big picture, just kind of my thought on it. You know, I've always said the kind of work I do, when I served as a frontline fundraiser, I don't do this to get rich, I do this to make a living and to serve, you know, doing something for the community for to make the world a better place every day rather than building widgets or putting money in somebody's pockets for widgets, you know, whatever. So I kind of took that same mentality into the consulting work that I don't need to build this huge firm that makes me millions of dollars. I still am doing this to serve. And I... Other than my first three years where I was part of a 40 person team in higher ed, I was always all solo shop. One, maybe some halftime admin. So that's who I really like to serve. So I like the small to midsize guys.

00:16:31 Chad: So, you know, charging a premium's not really gonna work there. It's more how do we make it so they're getting a lot of service and education, but not a ton of my time. So my coaching clients, they have a half hour call every month and unlimited emails, but they never email cuz they're too busy doing everything. So they really don't take a ton of my time. So I can carry a book of like 20 coaching clients, not much and kind of work those around. I had some great advice when I was first starting out from Tom Ahern who said figure out how many hours you wanna work in a week. Make sure that's I think 20 or less of client service. Figure out your hourly rate, what you need to make to support your family and have some extras and then double it is what he said, you know, cuz you're gotta cover all that other time. So I found that to be very true and in a pretty good formula, tweak things over time, but I basically still kind of run that way.

00:17:34 Jess: Okay, interesting. You just said, and I'm not sure if you were just saying this number randomly or if 20 coaching clients is actually on your docket. That sounds like a ton to someone like me. And I'm kind of curious like what your visibility outreach strategy is as a solo entrepreneur? Cuz that's a... I mean that just is a lot of volume. And so I'm curious like what your method or strategy is around getting 20 clients on your dock.

00:18:06 Chad: Yeah, my only real marketing is speaking and webinars. So I have a free monthly webinar series and I struggle with the phrase benefit of COVID but I'm gonna use it here. That was my one help was that I was already doing webinars before, I was getting like a hundred, 150 people per month. COVID hits, nobody can go to conferences. I start getting like 350 to 500 people for a webinar. And at that number there's always a couple people that afterwards reach out and say, "Hey, I like what you said, how would I maybe work with you?" So that's really been a huge help for me and pretty much all I do. And now I finally got smart after listening to folks like you and I have a sponsor for that webinar series that wants to get in front of those people as well. So, yeah, that's just worked great. You'd sign up for the webinar, you get on the email list, we stay in touch, there's weekly tips, those kinda things.

00:19:05 Jess: I was just gonna ask, do you have an email list and if so, how do you use that in your business?

00:19:12 Chad: Yeah, that's definitely my just keeping Chad in front of you, just general reminders, you know, here's the next webinar, here's a free download, here's a quick tip this week. Those kinds of things. Not the big long thing, but just real short little snippets, goes every Wednesday and just kinda keeps people connected.

00:19:33 Jess: Okay, Chad, every episode we play round of rapid fire questions for playing as a productivity masterman. What is your morning routine?

00:19:46 Chad: Oh, it's a 17 point checklist, right? I gotta get up and do news, cup of tea, kind of just wake up, get the mind going, bend some reading, do half hour of reading every morning. Then, you know, we start on the coffee, we get through all the social media notification checks and everything. We got a whole system working and off we go usually about 90 minutes.

00:20:11 Jess: Amazing. You mentioned on the call that you are an avid hiker. What is the best hike you've been on of all time?

00:20:21 Chad: Ooh, well, during COVID, I section hiked the middle section of the Appalachian Trail, which goes right, close to my house. And so Friday hikes in the woods during COVID was... I had more time, so drive to a trailhead and do a 10 mile out back. And so I actually knocked off about 330 miles of the trail over there and done from Pennsylvania, New Jersey line to about halfway through Virginia. So...

00:20:49 Jess: Whoa. Is there any bucket list hike that you have yet to do?

00:20:54 Chad: This summer? I'm hoping to do the narrows in Zion National Park. So maybe that's the plan. I have speaking gig somewhat in range, trying to see if I can make it work.

00:21:04 Jess: Nice.

Okay, fingers crossed. And then for my last question, you also messaged our episode that you have two teenage boys. So tell us, me too, what is life as an entrepreneur? Like any tips or advice for folks who have two teenage boys at home also running your own business?

00:21:23 Chad: Well, they're 15 and 13, so they need less of my time these days as far as answering questions or talking or playing with them. And they need much more of my time driving them places. So our driving age in Pennsylvania is 16, so I got another year of taxi service. I sometimes joke we should just paint both cars yellow and be, you know, cuz there's two kids, there's two of us and at times we can't make it work and have to call in reinforcements. So, yeah, that's evolved. I've been, and I started six years ago, you know, much younger and... but that was kind of nice too that I'm here and things are flexible and much more control of your own schedule to be there. I haven't missed a concert or other things. And yeah, so it's great. But that definitely evolves too.

00:22:16 Jess: Yeah. I can vision that happening. I'm a few years out though for sure. Thank you, Chad.

00:22:25 Chad: Thank you both so much.

00:22:29 Jess: Okay, so I'm sitting here thinking like, what does Chad do to stay disciplined and focused? I joke all the time, but it's not a joke. On my low five of strengthsfinder is both focus and discipline. So it would be, I mean it is difficult for me to like keep the blinders on and that's hard. Whether you're someone like me that enjoys professional development and you're like listening to podcasts or reading books and there's all these blogs about how to scale and da da da da, like how do you keep the blinders on to just say like nope, it's more important for me to do this kind of solo venture versus adding on team members or, I mean, even, what do you do if like, you suddenly have 20 new coaching clients that come into your world, like how, and then so the temptation to say, okay, well maybe I'll hire a junior coach to work under me to help provide community support. Like how do you stay focused?

00:23:29 Chad: I think I'm just wired for the focus. I'm one of the disks, I'm like a rare DC just like type A, but like love all the attention to detail organization stuff too. So that kind of works. I have lots of little rules, like I'm only gonna listen to podcasts if I'm in the car or working out. Like there's no just structure and things. This is when this happens. If I wanna do that, then I gotta wait till the next time block comes. I don't know, I just kinda like that stuff. So that's pretty natural. What was the other side of that question? Sorry, I'm blanking.

00:24:07 Jess: No, it's just, yeah, outside of that, like, what was it, what would you do if setting you had an influx of---

00:24:14 Chad: 2020, year of coaching people at once. Right? So I do--

00:24:18 Jess: Speaking gigs or just, yeah, like any project.

00:24:20 Chad: I do know, like I have some limits. So I know I can't go above 20. So if I get a coach, somebody coming, I'll usually know when a slot is gonna be opening up. So I might offer to do like a one time session. You know, we're gonna do an hour-long call intensive or something and then the next time the slot opens up it's reserved for you the deal. So that'll happen. If they need more help more urgently, I might refer 'em to somebody else. I have folks that we send people back and forth. You know, if it truly is a back and forth referral relationship, great. If it's me sending people all the time and nothing comes back, then we're gonna have a referral fee conversation. And that way with grant writing, grant writing's the thing that I could easily hire a grant writer in-house and keep them busy. But I would rather send that to somebody else, get a referral fee, not have that stress and not, excuse me, stress of managing somebody, but also that stress of, you know, I gotta meet payroll now and it's not just me that's gonna suffer, but somebody else and their family too. If we can't get enough work in the door, like I just don't really want that stress.

00:25:32 Cindy: Hmm, totally. I mean, I've been there, we're so similar. I wanna talk to you, you mentioned kinda on your hikes, you think that's where you get creative and you think about what's next. So understanding that you've come to the sweet spot it sounds like knowing what your capacity is, knowing what you can charge to maintain what you want in life and through your business and how you serve the community. What are you thinking about when you think about what's next or you know, the more business creative development stuff, do you have... is there anything that's on your list of you still wanna achieve or you still want to try or experiment with? What goes through your mind on those hikes?

00:26:24 Chad: Yeah, a little bit. I really keep it more loose. You know, and it's really just kind of what am I interested in now? Like what am I reading, what's going on? You know, and how do I incorporate that in is usually more the path of I have some kind of input. I heard something on this podcast that sounds interesting, how would that work? You know, click on the hike and I make some small tweaks to the business. So it's just over time it evolves, but it's really not this master plan of like where it's gonna be in five, 10 years. It's just kind of this like the entrepreneurial path, like all these ideas, which one's can I actually do, which ones will actually work? But that's kind of energizing to me as well. Just that kind of constantly evolving process.

00:27:11 Cindy: Awesome. Okay, one of our... I have a couple questions, but I'm gonna start with a Confessions question because I feel like it's a good time for that. So we always love to ask, you know, share a confession. What's one thing that you don't always... you're not always rushing to admit about running your business or, you know, something that you might not do as well as you would want? It's a stumper.

00:27:42 Chad: It's a stumper.

00:27:44 Chad: Yeah, I mean there, there's lots of little things like not putting in enough webinar prep time and just doing what I did the time before when I always wanted to be a little better each time. But, you know, something, I don't know. I will say, yeah, I think sometimes it's just going back to the same old easy source of information. You know, like I've used this template 20 times and I know there probably could be something better for this client, but it'll work and you know, I don't have the time. So they're still thrilled. It does what they need, but it's just not like Chad quality, it's not what I want it to be and I know it could be better, but if clients are happy, I can move on. I guess everybody wins, but it just kind of always feels like it's like the super, you know, like super perfectionist. Thankfully I've outgrown perfectionism, but in high school I was one and it was like, oh, that paper could have been just so much better. I still got an A, but you know, I knew I could, yeah, just kinda a little bit of thing in there. I don't know.

00:28:52 Cindy: Yeah. which is--

00:28:54 Chad: Cause that wasn't too much of a cop out on that question.

00:28:56 Cindy: No, no, I think that's important for people to hear cuz sometimes we see things over and over, over again and we're super sick of it, but our clients don't know. They're not... they're seeing it for the first time. So, I like that one. You seem to have found this like great sweet spot of contentment, right? Where you're not in that rat race of like hustle, hustle, you know, new growth, blah blah. And you've found something that works for you. You've sort of mentioned this at the beginning, but I wanna spend another couple minutes talking about it. Like what advice do you have to other consultants to tune out all that noise of like, should, should, should, because everyone has that like pounding in the back of the head, you should do this, you should do that, you need to do this. Like, it is overwhelming and you seem to have quieted that very successfully. Tell us how.

00:30:00 Chad: I won't say it was easy. I think I just kinda shifted mindset of, you know, I kept hearing that like, when do you wanna grow up? I just got annoyed by that question and then I was like, I almost felt like high school like it's peer pressure of why are you doing that? Why aren't you doing this? You know, this is the way everybody does it. Don't you wanna be one of the cool kids? And I'm like, no, I wanna build a business that I like and actually want to work in. I mean, there are easier ways to make money than being out on your own. You know, if I just want a job and the same thing everybody does, I'll, you know, go get a VP of advancement job somewhere and just ride that for another 30 years and, you know, but no.

00:30:45 Chad: So I want this and I want it to be my way. That's me. And I also like that it's kind of unique, like, you know, we can have this conversation because it's not structured like everybody else's firm and you know, it's kind of good as my friend Barry Ann would say, it's cheese tray talk, right? You know what you're standing across the cheese tray at the networking reception and somebody say, oh, it's your business. And it's something different and quirky and weird and fascinating and that's what gets people's attention these days. Because everything else is so all the same.

00:31:21 Jess: Totally, totally. Well you are an inspiration for all of us wondering folk or people that we still can find ourselves on the hamster wheel. So I really, I really am impressed with your discipline and focus for sure.

00:31:38 Chad: Thanks. And it's not always this way. I mean, there are times when I'm in like a two month funk and just can't figure it out and I gotta make a change and I don't know what it is and why do I feel this way? But you know, just kind of coming back and me, I gotta get out to the woods and figure it out.

00:31:55 Jess: Totally. Which goes back to the beginning of our conversation, which is why you prioritizing rest and alone time and just things that fill your cup are so critical to your business. Like for anyone listening that like, oh, I don't have time for that. That actually is a benefit to your business. So take it, structure your business so you can take it.

00:32:17 Chad: For sure. Love it.

00:32:19 Jess: Okay, Chad, for everyone listening that wants to ask you follow up questions about being a solo entrepreneur or is just curious about your webinar strategy or how you get 20 clients or all the things, where can people find you and reach out?

00:32:34 Chad: Sure thing. My firm is Productive Fundraising, so I can go to productivefundraising.com, just contact, and I go by Fundraiser Chad on all of the social media. So if that's your preference, either place you'll find me and happy to connect and answer questions for sure.

00:32:50 Jess: Amazing. Thanks for being here.

00:32:53 Chad: Sure thing. Thank you both.

00:32:56 Cindy: Thank you again for listening to the Confessions Podcast for nonprofit coaches and consultants. If you enjoyed today's episode, which I sure hope you did, you can show your support in one of three ways.-

00:33:08 Jess: Number one, post the screenshot of this episode to your Instagram stories or LinkedIn profile and tag Cindy enough so we can repost you.

00:33:16 Cindy: Number two, share this podcast with a fellow nonprofit culture consultant.

00:33:20 Jess: And number three, leave a positive review on Apple Podcasts so that we can continue to grow and reach new listeners.

00:33:27 Cindy: And of course, make sure you subscribe so you can get the latest and greatest interviews as they drop every Thursday.

00:33:33 Jess: And to our fellow non-profit coaching and consulting friends, remember we're an open book and here to answer your burning biz questions.

00:33:41 Cindy: See you next time.