“I'm just being very intentional with pricing and being able to provide high-level, high quality service. It actually came from feedback from other clients. It was just raving on about my services or how much they love me and they love working with me. It kind of let me see, like, "Hey, you know what you're doing here." So I think it has a lot to do with confidence when it comes to pricing.” - DeaRonda Harrison

DeaRonda Harrison is a grant writing expert and coach, helping nonprofits train up their grant writers and start or scale their own consulting businesses. She is the founder of June First Firm, providing high quality services and achieving impressive ROI for her clients.

Highlights:

1. Strategy on evolving her pricing and service model 

2. How to attract quality clients with a premium offer

3. Positioning yourself as an expert 

4. Leveraging LinkedIn to attract premium clients 

Connect with DeaRonda:

Website: https://junefirstfirm.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dearondaharrison 

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 nonprofit coaches and consultants looking to start or scale sell 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: We'll 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 going to 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.

00:01:32 Jess: We are back with another episode of Confessions, this time featuring one of our very favorite friends. I know we say that a lot. We're so lucky to have so many people.

00:01:42 Cindy: We are so lucky.

00:01:43 Jess: But this one is like, a real legit friend because we both had the opportunity to work with her. And it is the one and only DeaRonda Harrison of June 1st firm. Our residents at Grant writer, Grant writer trainer, coach. She's a woman of many talents. Here to talk about the evolution of her business, which I've said on the podcast and I'll say again now, is just one of the most brilliant offerings on the market. If I do say so myself, I don't know. I had nothing to do with it.

00:02:17 Cindy: I just think it's so good,

00:02:18 Jess: I'll tell it to everyone.

00:02:20 Cindy: Yeah, and what I love about this conversation, aside from just drawing herself, is she talking about her high level of what I would call "Premium services"? You know when we feel like in the nonprofit sector we're constantly chasing down prices or you know that constant pressure she charges the premium and it makes sense for her clients and it's done. She's done really well by that, to the point where she can get to a place where she's evolving her offerings. So I think that there's something for everyone in this conversation.

00:03:04 Jess: We cover so much, even if Grant's writing's not your modality, there's, like Cindy said, something for everyone. And I love that both you and her kind of open up how you both are so good at just saying yes to opportunities that come your way. And that, I think, is also a great lesson for anyone as we are in this new year. So without further ado, enjoy our episode with DeaRonda and let us know what you think.

00:03:34 Cindy: We are back with Confessions with Jess and Cindy and today's guest,

as you know, DeaRonda Harrison. DeaRonda, welcome to the podcast.

00:03:43 DeaRonda: So happy to be here. Hey ladies.

00:03:48 We all kind of know each other, and sometimes there are guests who are brand new, and then others like you that we like we know, so I feel like we can get really confessional.

00:03:59 Cindy: Getting into the details for sure. Before we started, as we start, can you just tell our audience a little bit about how you serve nonprofits?

00:04:13 DeaRonda: Yeah, sure. I am with the people who like to call me a grant-writing expert. They come to me for all their grant-writing needs. So nonprofits do a wide range of fundraising techniques, but my focus is grant writing only. That's my specialty. I don't really touch major gifts, individual donors or anything like that. So I work with clients. At one point, I was working with clients on retainer, and I'd shipped my business like, third quarter or early in the fourth quarter into training and providing training offerings, helping nonprofits train up their grant writers. I'm also doing some business coaching. I had grant writers reach out to me to expand their businesses or launch their grant-writing businesses. So. I've been doing those things, getting more training, and doing more than just one grant writing project. So this year has been different, like towards the end for me, but it's been exciting.

00:05:12 Cindy: I love that, and I want to talk about evolution, but before we do, because I think your model leading up to evolution is like drool worthy in this. I mean, I think everything you're doing is drool-worthy, but I feel like our listeners would love to learn a little bit about your retainer model because that's something that's working and you actually help other people build it, and that's your coaching that you do now. But tell us a little bit about, like, how many clients did you work with? How much did you charge? What did that look like?

00:05:50 DeaRonda:Yeah, my retainer model was really working for me. It was very lucrative, actually. And it was kind of like, "Am I crazy for cutting this off?" because it was. It was helping me do all the things, and I even had enough funds to bring on other grant-writing duties like assistance and management oversight, but it just didn't feel right to me anymore. I had clients at one point; I may have had one client at a time, then two, then three. I went on board three or four times, no more than that at one time. And then I just got to a point where I was managing probably two or three at one point, and I was charging anywhere from $4500 per month to $4900 per month, that was like my sweet spot. So if I had two clients, I was bringing in like $9,000 a month with just two clients, and I was essentially doing good. That was just retainer work. So, I mean, I was essentially good. I was able to pay my writers, and I still have money left over. And I intentionally went up on my pricing this year. And I noticed that it brought in another level of clientele that I love working with. They have wonderful missions. They let me lead. They treated me as an expert. It wasn't, they weren't difficult clients at all. And that's one of the things I encourage other consultants to do: kind of push yourself, try to go up on your price, and just see what happens. and really look into that retainer model. The hourly thing just didn't work for me. It didn't make sense. And it would be like, "Hours leftover," like we roll those over, then clients questioning about hours. So we just had a straight monthly fee. And once I explained it to clients, they liked it because they were even asked about the hourly rate: "OK, this is $4500 a month, how many hours does that include,’’ and I told them it was unlimited? That's the fee. Whatever is due for the month, we'll get it done for you, and you'll know what to expect every month and can budget for it with no surprises.

00:07:47 Jess: Pricing comes up quite a bit on this podcast, as it should, and as a fellow writer, I just don't do grant writing. It's been difficult for me to price my services when my gift is that I'm good and I'm fast, and so it makes zero sense to be pricing based on time. And I'm just curious, how did you arrive at that $45,000 to $4900 price? Did you just say that's what feels good and that's what I need, or was there some sort of math involved? But people are listening, and they're like, "Oh, I want to get to a place where I'm charging for that, especially because you said that it brought in such better quality clients, and I'm just curious how you arrived at that retainer number before we go into the evolution?"

00:08:39 DeaRonda: So I'll just add like about $3500 before and I thought that was like high higher end, but I noticed I was getting results for clients and like 30 days, 60 days, they're winning $50,000, $100,000, $150,000 grant, sometimes $250,000, so the ROI for me, it just made sense to go up on my pricing. I was delivering high-quality services and got rave reviews. So I was just giving it a shot. There wasn't any essential math involved. It was more like an ROI-like evaluation that I did, if you will. So I was like, "You know what, they're getting a return on their investment, what's another $1,000 bucks adding on to a retainer?" And again, I was just kind of testing the waters, and as soon as I went up with that pricing, I closed two more clients, and I was just like, "I'm sold." So that's kind of how that worked out,

00:09:35 Jess: Keeping on the nitty gritty down this. How did it go for any clients? You may have been working for that, but now you have to tell them that you are increasing your prices. Did that happen, and if so, how did that conversation go?

00:09:51 DeaRonda: Yeah. So the clients that I had under-- my only had like one, and then one was like kind of ending. So it was good timing for me. That was another thing, too. I understand that if you have five, six, or seven clients, going up on their pricing can be a challenge. But for me, it was just a timing issue. I was like, "You know what, I'm ready to bring on some new clients, I want to start them off on this new pricing model, so this would be a good time." And on my current client that I kind of had on retainer, if you will, they were against sunsetting. It was just a perfect timing situation. So I didn't have to have those difficult conversations like going over my pricing. I mean, they're not difficult. You just explain that, give them a heads up, let them know what it is, and make the adjustment.

00:10:45 Cindy: What do you think it was about that higher price point that allowed you to attract those higher quality clients? Like, what did you notice that was of higher quality about them?

00:11:02 DeaRonda: I like that they pretty much had all their things together. Like any items that I need are requested. That got it to me. I'm getting stuff from the executive director. It wasn't like pulling teeth. She gave me whatever I needed. And mind you, just because they're paying me more money doesn't mean the executive director is any less busy than another one. So still extremely busy. But she was conscious of making sure I had everything I needed to get the job done or pointing me to the person that could get me what I need. I think with grants, it's easier to measure ROI because you're getting awards. I know another industry would be a little bit more difficult, but for me, it was like, "You know what, they're getting these grant awards and this amount of time." So I just adjusted my pricing to go along with that. And to me, quality decline is so subtle that it doesn't give me a headache. They were lovely. I actually look forward to our meetings every week. Again, they listen to me. Accepting my suggestions, I was like, "You know, I think you should really leverage this work that you all are doing." A lot of them were attracted to me because they saw that I obtained a lot of funding or awards from certain funders within, say, the DC market. So those are the types of clients that I was attracting, and I think it just worked out well.

00:12:22 Jess: They do exist.

00:12:24 Cindy: They exist, but can we also just talk because part of it is like you're attracting them? But I also think that a lot of it is how we build that relationship with our clients as the expert and as someone who has things like boundaries, brings ideas to the table, and pushes back on bad ideas. And so, can you talk a little bit about how you've been able to position yourself in these client relationships as someone that they can trust? sort of seed when it comes to decisions and following advice.

00:13:03 DeaRonda: Yeah, a lot of-- I noticed all of my clients had in common, they were newly hired executive directors, typically less than one year. I thought that was kind of interesting. So they were all like. What do I need to do to move the organization forward? They had this goal that they wanted to hit, so they acknowledged what they did not know and didn't try to pretend like they knew what they didn't know. So one of my clients, the former ED, did all their grants. I took a look at them, and they weren't good. and I told her that. She said, "I appreciate you communicating that with me, that's the type of feedback that I want." I told her that from the beginning, and she kind of trusted me because I was upfront with her, and they just got the grants they were awarded, but just through relationships. But, there were so much more opportunities. So I think just creating that trust initially up front by being open and honest, something doesn't look good. Just tell them, letting them know something's working well, let them know that too. So I think it's just building that trust up front. It really, really works well.

00:14:10 Jess: So before we move on to the evolution, which I think everyone will be so excited to hear, and honestly, not to tease too much, but every single person I tell about it, I'm like, "This is the most brilliant offer ever." Like, why didn't I think of that? I want to talk to you a little bit about the buyer timeline and how long that process takes to lake level some expectations for our listeners. So I know because I watch you—you're very active on LinkedIn. Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think LinkedIn is like your spot. And so, would you say that? I don't know what percent of clients find you on LinkedIn, or is it a different way? And then, from initial outreach to signing the contract, what would you say? Is that a typical timeline?

00:15:06 DeaRonda: Yeah, so LinkedIn has really worked for me. I would say 90% of my referrals come from LinkedIn. They're not referrals from another client. They don't know me. They just found me there, were impressed by my background experience, which drove them to my website, and then they wanted to learn more about me. Maybe they will ask for a reference after talking to me, but 90% is just cold outreach, and that's how they find me. So that's why I really, really push others, like consultants, and when I'm coaching, I really put your information out there. They're really pushing your services on LinkedIn, especially if you're a grant writer. There are so few of us. So they find me there, and we go right into a call. A lot of them just have general questions like, "When do we start submitting applications? How long does it take me? How long does it take for wars to start coming in?'' So we have those, what we call, "Discovery calls." And then, typically, a lot of them are ready to get moving pretty quickly. I'm the ones that are serious of course. And within two weeks, we're signing a contract, and we're putting together their funder list, like within the first 30 days, a list of grants that specifically fund their programs, and we're moving pretty quickly. It goes very, very fast. So when I tell them that up front, it's going to move pretty quickly. It's going to seem slow at first that we're not submitting any grant applications at first 30,45 days. But once we get everything down and solid, we're going to be knocking grant out the door, they're going to be going pretty quick.

00:16:37 Jess: So I just want folks to listen to what DeaRonda just said about the initiation of a meeting to sign a contract being roughly 2 weeks, and I want to call out that in my experience. Cindy, please debunk both DeaRonda and I if you have a different experience, at least for one-on-one work, it does not and should not be like this back and forth for months and months. I'll pay you next time. In my experience, those clients have been the most difficult to work with and the biggest headaches. And I'm not saying that people aren't out there watching you for a long time or that they might join your list and not initiate that outreach for another year. I'm not saying that because I do think that the timeline to actually make the purchase can be quite long for a nonprofit. But in my experience, the signing contract timeline is actually quite short. And I don't know, I would kind of say it's a red flag if you're not having that experience.

00:17:50 Cindy: I'll pipe in because my experience is sometimes the same and sometimes not, and I think also because depending on what products I'm talking to people about, like our fractional fundraiser service, it typically takes longer because it's less defined. And for boards, that's kind of like giving them the heebie-jeebies. They're just like, "What is this?" Usually it's not unusual for me or someone from my network to have to present to a board or something like that just because it is. They were looking usually to hire a staff person and we've given them an alternative and it's a big mind fuck. Like, excuse my swearing, but like, "What is this?" So I think it depends on what you're doing with organizations, and also, boards make a big difference. So in the work that we do, I think the executive directors are either in or they're out, but they don't always have the tools to present it to their board. Sometimes it's actually board business because it's an operational decision. But I have seen organizations where—and I would much rather come to the board meeting and answer questions and have ED do it without me because it's just that they don't know. They don't have the answers like we have so. But some of my other services, yeah, I'm not going back and forth because if it's right, you're in. And if not, you know, that's totally fine. So yeah, I think it depends.

00:19:32 DeaRonda: And when the clients come to me, they're the board. Most of these clients again have in common. No one says they're quiet boards or that they don't care, but they're just like, "Do what you need to do."

00:19:43 It's operational, yeah.

00:19:44 DeaRonda: It's operational, yeah. You're bringing in funds for the organization, which is revenue-generating. So they're the board, not like, "Hey, we need to talk to the grant writer, better that you're about to hire. So again, they all have in common. Just move forward and get it done. By the way, those are great clients, by the way.

00:20:03 Jess: Well, let's get into this evolution. We keep teasing. So tell us about the evolution of your business and kind of your current offer that I think is so brilliant. So that people can get a glimpse, and, you know, let's get into all the nitty-gritty, gritty details. Like, how much is it? How? What does the container look like? What's the duration of the container? All that stuff?

00:20:29 DeaRonda: Yeah, so I'm around– Well September 30th I ended my retainer clients. Of course, I gave them a heads-up notice. They weren't very happy about it. So it kind of made me feel bad, but again, I just had to do what was best for me and my organization, and I did warm handoffs. I handed them off to other grant writing, quality grant writers whom I trusted.

00:20:52 Cindy: And who do you get a referral fee from?

00:20:56 DeaRonda: Yeah, I get a referral fee from the wonderful coaching from Cindy, who gave me that idea, because before I just sent people away, but now I am away enough for me to get paid. I'm sending you a paying client who's ready to go, ready to get started, and who already has a lot of the up-front or hard work already done. I'll just hand them over to you if you will, so that was a great model, too, to get paid to have revenue coming in for my business and then just shift over into training. That's something that I was already doing on the side, and I always got really great feedback from it, and it's something that I enjoy. And also seeing so many nonprofits struggle, and myself, as a grant writer who worked in nonprofits, not having the support that I needed while working for amazing organizations with wonderful missions, but I would always leave because I was burned out, the only grant writer there, and no one understood what I did. My supervisor typically didn't support me. They did not support me. I was being thrown all these deadlines. Sometimes I would have 5 deadlines, grants, grants and reports during a month, sometimes 6-7, sometimes eight people are off on the holidays. I'm working because I got like this January 4th deadline. So it was just that lack of support in the grant writer turnover had done the research on it, they were lasting less than at one point 18 months and it became even less than that. And these were like, quality Grant writers they don't even last the organization, So the trainer was the original name. Now it's time to train up your grant writer. That model actually came from other clients. They were just like, "Hey, do you?" because I was ending my client work. They were like, "Hey, do you provide some type of support for grant writers? We're looking to bring on a potential grant writer in-house. Do you offer a train?'' The trainer model had a client ask me that, and another client who didn't know the other client asked me the same question. I was like, "Ok, ok, maybe this is the sign again, going back to that training model, something that I enjoy." So that's kind of where the idea came from. And shifting into that, it was like, "What does this look like?" Who am I talking to? Am I talking to the Director of Development? "Am I talking to Ed's?" So I'm working with Cindy and getting some coaching around that language and how to present and position it. Talking to the pain points, what does that look like? So we develop that as our target. Nonprofit is a smaller nonprofit that has less with an ED with less than like 10 staff members potentially. And they typically don't have a director of development. So I'm talking to Reed, who has all these issues because they're doing everything. They're trying to fundraise, they're trying to manage a staff, and they're dealing with the board. They just don't have the capacity to bring on a knob, to bring on a grant writer, and to support them as they need to be supported. So that's how that has developed over time.

00:23:55 Jess: Hi, DeaRonda. We're back for another round of our rapid-fire questions. Are you ready to play?

00:24:01 DeaRonda: I am.

00:24:04 Jess: I know that you love a little R&R and love to travel, so where are you thinking of booking a plane ticket to next?

00:24:13 DeaRonda: Well, I actually just came back from the Dominican Republic, like, the week before Thanksgiving. That was so relaxing. And anywhere where there's a beach. But I've never been to Bora Bora, but I heard it's really nice. So I think that's probably next on my list.

00:24:31 Jess: I concur. I support that 100%. What is your on-stage walk-up song? What's your anthem?

00:24:42 DeaRonda: Probably anything with the Migos. Rest in peace. Take off. Just gets me in that like, I'm about to, like, just take over for some reason. I would definitely pull up the Migos.

00:25:00 Jess: Totally. And if you had an extra $100 to spend, what would you spend it on?

00:25:07 DeaRonda: Food. I'm a foodie, so any new restaurant that's probably like my hobby, extracurricular. I mean, in the Atlanta area, new restaurants pop up all the time. So I'm going to check out new foods and seafood, Italian, Chinese. Not partial.

00:25:26 Jess: Well, I have to know then. So if I'm coming to visit you in Atlanta, where are you taking me to go eat?

00:25:31 DeaRonda: We'll probably go to the grill in Buckhead. They have some really good food, different dishes. Lamb. I like that type of stuff.

00:25:41 Jess: I need to go to Atlanta. There's so many good nonprofit people there. Are you all getting together? Ok. Thanks for playing.

00:25:53 Jess: Sorry, I couldn't unmute myself fast enough. That's why I think it's brilliant because I too have never worked in an organization that, even the larger organizations that I worked in, had $15- $25 million budgets and a proper development team. The staff leadership in general doesn't have a ton of capacity to, like, sit side by side and train you. And like with grants, there's the history piece and the longevity piece. And, like, up front, the knowledge you need to learn to be able to write really well about a program is like, "It takes a lot, right?" And so that's why I think it's so smart. So I want to dive a little bit more in depth, if that's okay, into the marketing of all of this because it's a total shift, right? Like you're over here on LinkedIn, you're killing it, people are coming to you, you only need two clients a month to be super stoked out of your mind and then it shifts. So like, how many clients can you train up at a time like, how and I'm kind of–let's start there, and then how are you--I'm assuming that it's a more one to many model you know how have you evolved your marketing to just basically like grow your audience because so we're going to many scale you have to have more or do you maybe you. Tell me

00:27:21 DeaRonda: you know. Still, it's still a learning process. So, of course, we came up with the cohort. I wanted it to be a cohort, but I still wanted it to be small. So it's five trainees, if you will be in the program, and we do like—my goal is to do like two launches a year. So it's like you have a spring cohort and then a fall cohort. So, my first client actually just came in. She was like, "I don't want to wait for the cohort to get started." I just please sign up, coordinate with my grant writer, do what you need to do. I'm when I tell you like those are the best clients. They move quickly, they want to get started. It goes back to what we were saying earlier. So yeah. And so I still like working there. I really like one-on-one. I personally like that. I feel like you get to know the person better. It's more intimate. I can speak directly to your organization and the needs of your organization. It's still like working through the cohort model, how to do that, still providing high value for every client. And it's $5000 per individual if you send multiple people to the program, of course, it would be a discounted rate for the other individual, but that's the rate that I came up with. And the ROI, if you will, is that the client that signed up for the program already, the first grant they applied for, they won. It was $50,000 that I literally held her hand through that process. When she did it, she said, the feedback she gave me was that I did not expect to have to leave the writing on that first grant. I think she was afraid, but I wanted her to do that because I wasn't going to be here. And my goal was to have you do that. She had all the prior proposals that I had done because they were actually from a prior client of mine, a prior grant writing client, so she was able to pull from there. I told her some great proposals to pull on language from any grant writers who know the deal. We just pretty much have prepackaged proposals. So I showed her how to do that, but I had her lead it. And then once she put together an application, I reviewed it, gave her some feedback, and I found out later, we were no longer working together, they won the grant. So I'm literally there to hold your hand while you're going through this process. The goal is to get a quick win. We want you to win a grant..

00:29:41 Jess: Absolutely. So can you tell me, is this like a mix of curriculum? Is this straight coaching, like you're just showing up on calls with folks? And then how long roughly are you working with people? And is it the type of container where they can renew with you and they stay ongoingly or it's like you set them off into the sunset at some point like you know.

00:30:02 DeaRonda: Yeah, typically. So we'll start off with 6 weeks, and then I've kind of adjusted to 90 days. So it's a six-week intensive course. And then, kind of like check-ins, I'm kind of doing the same thing for my grant coaching when I'm coaching other individuals for their grant writing businesses. Like 6 weeks of intensive, we meet every week or every other week depending on your schedule and then check in within like a 90 day bottle. And it's a curriculum, if you will. So I provide a lot of meeting agendas. When you're meeting with program people, what do you need to talk about? What needs to be on that agenda? Like this is stuff I did not know as a not been like. Going back to your point, Jess, I worked at $15 million and $20 million organizations. They just didn't have the capacity to support me as I needed because, again, everybody's super busy. So I'm gonna provide like agendas, meetings, type of questions to ask one of the hardest things in my role as a grant writer, working at these large organizations means getting the people who need to be in a grant meeting all in a meeting at the same time, with schedules being busy and everything like that. So I show them ways to navigate that, even when they're developing a program and the Ed's like, "Hey, let's apply for this grant." This is perfect for our program, but the program isn't yet developed. They're not able to get the questions that they need to answer the grant. So I provide tips, tricks, and tools for getting what you need to answer those grant applications. And that's just something that I figured out overtime that I did not know before. So that's one of the really great things. And then a lot of them want to go after federal grants that are brand new to them and their organization. I asked them to pull up the grant from last year, and we'll start putting together a draft even if that grant hasn't even dropped yet. We already know you're going to have your draft before the end of that program. So we go in, it's very hands-on. It goes pretty quickly.

00:32:01 Cindy: It's such a great program. And there's still a lot of new stuff. I think the one thing I know because we worked together is that it's only evolving, right? We're only going to see things change and grow from there. So it's fantastic. I want to talk about the other product that you launched this quarter and three months ago. Which is your coaching business, coaching for grant writing consultants. As I said, right off the bat at the beginning, I think most grant writers who work with organizations, if they hear you have 2-3 clients and are bringing in the cash that is super aspirational. So what allowed you or what went through your mind in terms of making that decision to say, "Okay, I have enough here that I can share it with other people and help them be successful.

00:33:01 DeaRonda: Yes. So I was going back to our initial—everything goes back to coaching with Cindy. She has all the answers, by the way. So when our deep, deep dive call—I think is what she called it the first session, she was asking me all these questions, and they just all came out of me, like, "What do people come to you for? What types of questions do they ask you? What do you enjoy doing?'' But she had a way of asking the questions. They brought it out of me and people always would come to me about launching their grant writing business. Our questions are: how do you get clients? How do you set your pricing if you don't do hourly? Most people know that I'm against that. They're like, "Well, where do you get this number from? Jess asked me that also, like, just at the beginning of this podcast like where do you even get that number from and then when you don't do hourly what do you what do you say to clients? And I find that a lot of those questions are coming up, and I'm getting on calls and telling people what to do, and I'm like, "Wait a minute. Let's set up some kind of program around this system and do some coaching around it.'' Because again my first official coaching client. She was following me on LinkedIn. She said she was impressed with my background. She did not know me at all, and she was like, "Do you offer coaching?" And I was like, ''Sure.'' And we went through coaching sessions for her, and she really gave me some really great feedback. She was very pleased with everything. And that's kind of like it's just being itself, that's evolving too. That's right now. I'm not set up in a cohort. I really like that one-on-one. So far, I mean it's the same price as the training for your grant writing program, $5,000, 6 weeks intensive, 90 days altogether.

00:34:46 Jess: I love it. You sound very busy. Do you have anyone helping you? Supporting you to help support all of these people? It sounds like you're holding a lot of space for others.

00:34:57 DeaRonda: Yes. I had, of course, my grant writing assistance or grant writers on my team. But as that kind of shifted, I moved into more of a social media support role. I think you both met Ashley Waters people like you're killing it on LinkedIn. It's because of her. I'm like, "I can't do that and do all the other things." So she's really great with, like, the graphics; she knocks those things out so quickly, and she understands. She took the time to sit down with me and understand my business up front so that she could do the copy. And of course I may tweak it a little bit, and then I'll post it, or sometimes she'll post things. And then Cindy also encouraged me—or challenged me, if you will—to post every day at one point for like, maybe 10 days. And I had a little groove going, so I just kept doing it. And that's really giving me a lot of visibility because a lot of people just browse on LinkedIn, they don't do a lot of posting. And I had just taken some professional Photo shots, and I was like, "Hey, I'm just going to use this and just continue to keep posting."

00:36:05 Jess: I want to talk a little bit about LinkedIn because you are killing it and so much of your business comes from there. And I'm curious, like, do you have a proper strategy? Like, is there a formula to your post? You just mentioned posting every day. I'm not sure if you're still doing that challenge or not, but I'm just kind of curious about that because you're right. I think a very small percentage of people are actually creating content on LinkedIn. Most people are just lurking. So there's such a huge opportunity. But it's like a very different platform from the others that will remain nameless. And I'm just curious if you have like a formula or strategy from when you go in there or is your formula or strategy like, to just be really engaging on the platform, not necessarily posting all the time, but like you're interacting with people or tell us?

00:36:58 DeaRonda: Yeah. So creating the copy was something we did up front. I'm in the beginning, so that was to me, once that was done, I have what I need, speaking to the pain points of the executive directors, speaking to the pain points of people that want to launch their grant, learning business and the key to launching a grant writing business is doing that while you're at your nine to five. So that other little specialty because I did it so long while I was working at a 9 to 5 and I was really showing others how to do that. If you have great structure and systems in place and your pricing is right, you can do this while you're at your nine to five. The goal is to replace your income, not feel burned out, and not do all those things. So again, once I had my copy of the letter addressing the pain points of the executive director and the pain points of those who lost the grant writing business, I was able to intentionally post when I was doing that daily challenge, and I find that for me, it was helpful to post in the morning on LinkedIn, I feel like I saw more engagement versus in the evening, when people are kind of winding down on LinkedIn as a business platform. It's not like Instagram people hop on in the evening after work. LinkedIn is a little bit more of a business-hour platform. So I found it to be the most helpful for me during those morning and early afternoon hours. And of course engaging with other people, like when Cindy posts or posts videos, engaging Jess, and things that you post and other grant writers from my network, other podcasts, episodes of a podcast where all they talk about is grant writing, just like those types of things. Of course, I just personally like LinkedIn, so I also engage in those ways as well.

00:38:58 Jess: So great, so helpful. And again, just the sleeping giant LinkedIn. For those who aren't active on it, get on LinkedIn as we wrap up. She's going to be embarrassed that I'm asking this, but I want to talk to you about your work with Cindy because clearly it's been transformational in your 2022. I'm not sure exactly when you two started working together, but I'm curious, folks. I've talked a lot about it on the podcast. It's been really difficult for me to find coaches who understand our customers' nonprofits or do something a little bit different. And so, can you tell us a little bit about what working with Cindy has either sparked for you or just helped you get clear on? Or, you know, let's just bring it up. Let's just make ideas uncomfortable. Versation. But, now that I'm here, she did not ask me to say this. And it's not like to do anything other than potentially help other people who maybe are feeling stuck, like, I'm not sure where you were, where are you now? And what did Cindy help you do?

00:40:01 DeaRonda: Yeah. And just to be very transparent with you, as a black woman, I want a black woman coach. As a nonprofit working with nonprofits, I want someone who understands nonprofits. And it's just been so challenging. I've taken other business classes or coaching services. They have good information in them. But again, it's just different when you work with nonprofits. And I believe it's like a "Make it happen" conference or one of your other conferences. Jess, and said we were just doing like a pow wow or a networking. And Cindy was talking, and I was like, "Oh, she sounds like she knows what she's doing." I'm working with other consultants, but at the time I didn't think anything else of it because I saw her impact and profit. Is that the name of the cohort program? So I went and checked it out. I was like, "I'm a little bit further along than this one than what they offer on here, and I don't know if it would be very useful for me." So I just sent her a message and was like, "Hey, do you offer one-on-one by any chance?" and I could tell her answer. She didn't already have something put together, but she was like, "Sure." I was like, "I like her." So she put something of a feather too. All these people are like, "Do you do this?" And you're like, "Sure." and one of the best decisions I've ever made. And I did not want to do this long coaching program. I just wanted to do something, maybe for two months. But our program, I think, is 6 months, and it's coming to an end soon. And we're both really sad about it. It's been so helpful. Just her mindset and working with nonprofits. She even challenges me again being a black woman to really like to leverage that again a lot. Another thing my clients have in common, all the Ed's were black. I didn't even notice that, and that was just something that I just put together over time. So that's something I put in my marketing, you know, to attract those types of clientele because they were already coming to me. So just really using my strengths and speaking to them and her ability to be able to speak to nonprofits, like something as simple as a program that costs $5,000, but our four payments are $1,350. Like that's a little bit more digestible when you're nonprofit. So I understand those types of things and understand that I had a tendency to give people things like, "Hey, if you do this in the next 5 days, I'll give you a discount." And Cindy was like, "You know, nonprofits are a little bit different. They have to talk to the board. So it kind of could be a turn off when you do those. She was very nice in the way she said it, basically, I don't do that. So I kind of stopped doing that because it's not an infomercial, you move in the next, you know, 30 minutes to get this discount. It's just different from nonprofits. So it's—she understands that. And then I don't know. I told Cindy, and I don't think I told you just to your face, but you both are copywriters, and you just need to embrace it and just deal with it. Because Cindy would just be sitting there, like she just wrote the copy on my website. She literally just typed that up while we were having a coaching session, and it just came right out of her. And I was really looking into hiring a copywriter. But that all came with my coaching with her. She made me forced working with systems. I already had Dubsado, but I was kind of playing with it a little bit, and she was like, "No, we're going to use this workflow." We're going to implement this workflow because I was very, very hands-on with everybody. Like, how do you do all these things? You really need to leverage systems. And they're not expensive. They're not very expensive at all. So just making sure I did all those different things and maximizing the tools and resources that are available to me—I mean, I could go on and on, but yeah.

00:43:58 Jess: I love it, and I will also just say that it's so much easier to write a copy for others than this for yourself.

00:44:05 DeaRonda: I'll give you that.

00:44:07 Cindy: Yeah, Jess and I laugh because she's way more of a copywriter than I am, but I can do it, I can do little pieces here and there for sure. Alright before we wrap up, one of our favorite questions is about confessions. What is one thing that you'd like to improve in your business over the next little while?

00:44:33 DeaRonda: That's good. I think just the understanding of our industry—I just saw someone post them as a part of the Grant Professionals Association. So when we have this, it's kind of like a Facebook group, if you will, for grant zone chat, and someone puts it in there. Someone sends them a report for a proposal, asking for a grant consultant to submit like 45 proposals over the next 12 months, and they cannot even guess how much the budget is. It was like $8,000 bucks. And I wanted to respond because they were asking people like, what should I say, ohh, my goodness hair. I was like, "This is what you need to tell them." So I just think it's so insulting. Everybody understands lawyers, their prices, they're pricing on question accountants. Their price is their pricing on questioning grant writing.We actually have something tangible like that. You get it. But there's just this whole notion of can we pay you out of the grant or volunteer grant writer will pay you when we start getting the funds, I've even told clients that have come to me, potential clients, straight up. If a grant writer is charging $500 or $1,000 a month, that's a red flag.

00:45:48 Cindy: Exactly. And the questions in these questions should show a lack of understanding. Like it's not about how many, if their metric is how many grants you're applying to, and they want more like to squeeze in as many as you can in the year, red flag.

00:46:04 DeaRonda: 45 in a year, that's a grand every week. Like, So its just, just want to improve on the messaging and grant writing and the pricing behind it. Like, when I tell people I charge for it, they're like, "Oh my gosh, that's so aspirate like, I don't even think that's a lot of money.'' I didn't say $10,000 a month. Like it's just -- And I find that a lot of us under charge, not even just as grant professionals, just sometimes as consultants, professional as women, we can tend to do that. And as for me, I'm not doing that anymore. I've been very intentional with my pricing, even with federal grants. I've talked to other grant consultants who work for large grant writing firms. They're charging 10, 15, 20, and $25,000 for one proposal. I'm starting to do the same thing as well. So that's something I'm being very intentional about in my business. Of course, I get the people who can't afford it. You just have those conversations. Thank you. Or that's why you've trained up. And then we'll train somebody. Monthly. Pay it one time, and I'll train you up on it. So. I still have the heart of course for the smaller nonprofits. So that's where the trainer was developed. But I'm just being very intentional with pricing and being able to provide high-level, high quality service. It actually came from feedback from other clients. It was just raving on about my services or how much they love me and they love working with me. It kind of let me see, like, "Hey, you know what you're doing here." So I think it has a lot to do with confidence when it comes to pricing, and for me, I'm just going to be more intentional with that moving forward.

00:47:54 Jess: So good. So good, DeaRonda. For folks that want to send grant writers your way, send grant writing consultants your way, or just follow you in general, where's the best place for folks to get in touch?

00:48:08 DeaRonda: Yes, absolutely can. So I'm actually on a LinkedIn purge. I did all this LinkedIn, get on LinkedIn. But for now through the end of the year, I've been intentional, like not just not really I'm saying LinkedIn, but just social media in general. So for now, I would say, send me-- I think this comes out after the New Year, but for now anyway, send me an e-mail at ronda@junefirst.com. I am pretty good at checking my emails, and of course, you can still message me on LinkedIn. I have my inbox open, and we don't have to be connected for you to send me a message, and yeah, those are pretty much the best ways to contact me. I'd recommend LinkedIn as well as sending me an email.

00:48:54 Jess: Great. And what's your website?

00:48:55 Cindy: Going to plug your website?

00:48:56 DeaRonda: Yeah. My website is junefirstfirm.com J-U-N-E-F-I-R-S-T-F-I-R-M.com and my birthday is June 1st. For those that are– they ask. Some people do ask, "Where did that come from?" So that's actually my birthday. I didn't want to use my name, so I came up with that.

00:49:14 Jess: I love that. That's very clever.

00:49:18 Cindy: And when this goes to air, you can visit the website, where there are a few good lead magnets, and you can book a call directly with a couple clicks.

00:49:32 DeaRonda: This is so good. I love my copy now. So, so, so amazing. And I have people that ask me again. They just want to get on the phone with me and talk to me about launching the grant-writing business. I have like this really great document, 5 questions that grant writers and launching their business typically asked me. You can get that right into your inbox on my website. So check it out. And also, you're really getting into grant writing, making phone calls, and not knowing what to say to funders. We also have a document, 31 questions, really good, great questions. I even use it to this day. There are some questions to ask funders that they typically don't get asked. It's not typically on their website. So check that out too. I think that'll be good.

00:50:20 Jess: Thank you.

00:50:24 DeaRonda: Absolutely. Thank you, ladies. I enjoyed it. I love the Confessions podcast and I didn't want to listen to a whole lot of episodes until I had mine. But yeah, I'm happy now. I can go to the bench.

00:50:38 Jess: Happy benching.

00:50:40 DeaRonda: Looking forward to it. Thank you, ladies.

00:50:41 Cindy: . Thank you.

00:50:45 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.

00:5 0:59 Jess: Number 1. Post a screenshot of this episode to your Instagram stories or LinkedIn profile and tag Cindy and I. We commit your post you

00:51:05 Cindy: Number 2. Share this podcast with a fellow nonprofit culture consultant,

00:51:19 Jess: And number 3. Leave a positive review on Apple Podcast so that we can continue to grow, and reach new listeners

00:51:16 Cindy: And, of course, make sure you subscribe so you can get the latest and greatest interviews as they drop every Thursday.

00:51:22 Jerss:And to our fellow nonprofit coaching and consulting friends, remember, we're an open book and here to answer your burning business questions.

00:51:30 Cindy: See you next time.