Transitioning to a Group Model with Sarah Olivieri
"I now get paid mostly through clients, nonprofit executive directors who enroll in my group program called Thrive and stay there usually for at least a year. My big pet peeve as the thing I can't do that crushes my soul is when you give clients support and they don't implement. I just need it for my own sanity for clients to implement." - Sarah Olivieri
Transitioning to a Group Model with Sarah Olivieri
In this episode, we welcome Sarah Olivieri, mastermind behind PivotGround, to share her blueprint for balancing a successful nonprofit consultancy while juggling the responsibilities of single parenthood. From strategic shifts to innovative program structuring, Sarah is candid about the significance of time management, profitability, and the personal lifestyle choices that fuel her success. She's redefining the game, from scrapping caffeine to transforming webinar strategies, all while keeping an eye on engaging and retaining her audience. Brace yourselves for a dose of reality and wisdom as we explore Sarah's unique approach to optimizing her consulting practice without sacrificing the essentials. Tune in for a session packed with insights and the honest confessions of a nonprofit consultant trailblazer!
Key Highlights:
Building a Successful Nonprofit Business: Sarah discusses her journey of starting PivotGround, a marketing agency for nonprofits and eventually shifting to a focus on improving nonprofit operations. She shares her experience with Mariah Coz’s High Ticket Hybrid program and her group program called Thrive.
Transitioning to a Scalable Coaching Program: Transition from one on one coaching to a one to many model in the coaching business. Sarah shares her experience of making this transition and how it resulted in exponential growth in both time and money.
Transitioning to a Simpler Sales Process: Challenges of selling to nonprofits and how their selling process has evolved to avoid lengthy proposals. Sarah shares her success with a three webinar sequence that speeds up the closing process.
Building Engagement, Overcoming Objections in Webinars: Includes the importance of investing time and money in the webinar process to create a buy in from potential clients. Sarah discusses her unique approach of using a sliding scale for webinar fees, which has proven to be successful in attracting repeat attendees.
Understanding Objections in Marketing: Insights from Sarah on overcoming objections in sales and marketing, highlighting how understanding what people really want can be more effective than focusing on money-related objections.
Sarah is launching a beta program on March 1st for for-profit businesses interested in learning the Impact Method®️. This program is designed to help these businesses transform into entities that the owners love and control, rather than being controlled by the business itself. Whether participants are looking to expand their teams and client base or aim to build a high-profit business with a 3-day workweek like Sarah does, the opportunity is ripe. Currently, there are 2 more spots available! Email Sarah at: sarah@pivotground.com
Find Us Online: https://www.confessionswithjessandcindy.com/
Connect with Sarah Olivieri:
Sarah Olivieri (Linkedin): linkedin.com/in/sarah-olivieri
PivotGround (Website): pivotground.com
PivotGround (Twitter): PivotGround
Connect with Cindy:
Cindy Wagman Coaching https://cindywagman.com
Fractional Fundraising Network https://www.fractionalfundraising.co/
LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/cindywagman
Connect with Jess:
Out In the Boons: https://www.outintheboons.me
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jess-campbell-outintheboons/
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 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 their own businesses past the six-figure mark by pulling back the curtain.
00:00:31 Cindy: Whether you're still working inside a non-profit 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 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.
00:01:31 Cindy: Hey, everyone, it's Cindy. And before we get into today's episode, I wanted to come and share with you something. Jess doesn't even know I'm doing this, but she is hosting a conference for consultants this February in California called Make It Happen Live. And I'm so excited to be there. I can't wait to meet everyone who's going to go. And so I thought, you know what? Jess is so busy with work these days. I would take this opportunity to let you know about it. February 28th and 29th, although, come early on February 27th, there's some fun stuff happening too.
00:02:11 Cindy: So if you haven't already signed up to Make It Happen, join us. It is going to be so much fun and transformative for your business. Seriously, every time I get together with other consultants, I feel like things just get elevated to a whole new level. So the link is in the show notes and I hope to see you there. Hey, Jess.
00:02:32 Jess: Hi Cindy.
00:02:34 Cindy: Today's conversation is one I've been looking forward to. So for background, I met Sarah Olivieri who’s joining us today through mutual friends on the internet because she had been implementing a program or sort of following a program that I was following as well in my business. And we all know that when we do things, when we learn from people outside of the sector, we need to grow and adapt and change it to work with nonprofits. So I'm so excited to have this conversation because I know Sarah's been doing incredible work. Sarah, welcome to the podcast.
00:03:18 Sarah: Hey, I'm really excited to be here and excited to have this conversation.
00:03:24 Jess: I feel like before we get into it, Cindy, you can't just say like the program.
00:03:28 Cindy: The program, I'm sure it'll come up.
00:03:30 Jess: You need to say which one.
00:03:31 Cindy: Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it'll come up, but just like not, leave it hanging out there. So the program is run by Mariah Coz and it's her High Ticket Hybrid program, which the way she teaches it is kind of like a high ticket group program that is a hybrid of learning. So a little bit live and a little bit self paced or asynchronous. But her whole thing is that she doesn't do sales calls, which we can talk about it. But yeah, so we'll get into that. I'm sure. Before we do, Sarah, can you tell us a little bit more about how you get paid and what your business is.
00:04:17 Sarah: Sure. I now get paid mostly through clients, nonprofit executive directors who enroll in my group program called Thrive and stay there usually for at least a year, although I now have two clients who are in their third year. And it's a medium high ticket program. And then sometimes I work with organizations one-on-one, but my favorite is to work in the group delivery model. I have been running my business, oh man, for a lot of years now. And it started out, when I started PivotGround, it was actually a marketing agency for nonprofits. And it was actually through my marketing agency work that led me to do more and more strategy work, was marketing strategy.
00:05:11 Sarah: And then I actually had a client in DC who said, would you come down and reorganize us? And I was like, oh my God, that sounds like so much fun. Which not everybody thinks about, but for me. And then I was like, how much do I charge? And I talked to my mentors and I was like, I'm actually charging way more than I do valuing my time for marketing. And they thought the money was like nothing. And to me, it was like, I'm getting to do this most fun thing for lots of money. And it felt great. And in that moment, I knew I had to shift my business and really focus on helping nonprofits run better rather than do marketing. So that's kind of like how I came to what I do now, which is really helping nonprofits run better.
00:05:56 Cindy: I love that story. And I love the pivot because also, was your business always called PivotGround? And it just so happens that you had a major pivot in your work.
00:06:07 Sarah: It was already called PivotGround. I had a company with my ex-husband that was supposed to be a media company. And it turned out I had been building websites on the side like back in, like Dreamweaver days and early WordPress days. And that company, which was really about media production video, just really, I was the one making all the money building websites, which led to digital marketing when that became a thing. And so then when we got divorced, we actually had two companies. We had that media production company. So he kept that because it was called Big Guy Media. He's six foot five. And we had this other company that was a cafe, an art supply store with, like a lease and a space and he couldn't run it.
00:06:53 Sarah: So I took that and I renamed. It was called Olivieri's Arts, Crafts & Coffee. I renamed it PivotGround, turned it into a cafe and coworking space and merged in my website work, which was starting to focus on nonprofits. And then when I had the chance to get out of my lease, I got out of the cafe completely. But I have to tell you that running the coworking space and having this community space, I met all the local business people. I didn't act, to be honest, I didn't know that being a business consultant for nonprofits was even an option. And I learned about it there, because every business group wanted to do something in my space. And I learned so much about the world of consultants and things. And I think that if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have made that big pivot.
00:07:48 Cindy: That is such a great story. Both Jess and I are dying to ask you questions. One of the questions that always comes up now that you are doing this one-to-many program, and you said you rarely work one-on-one with clients, do you find, like, I find one of the myths is that we get to one-to-many, like, off the bat. It happens right away. And then like we never have to work one-on-one. So I'd love to know a little bit more about, like how much, when do you take on one-to-one clients? Is it consistent or is it really just a thing in the past that you do some favors for people sometimes?
00:08:29 Sarah: That's a good question. What does it really look like? So a lot of my work is driven by my child who is, I call him [Extra]. And my availability, I'm not a total single mom, his dad's still in the picture, so I don't have him every night, but I do all the heavy parenting lifting. And so during the pandemic, my son got indefinitely suspended, which tanked my working availability because I track my time. Pro tip to everybody, track your time to the minute. I was able to work 12 interrupted hours a week, which is not really enough to run a business. And so it forced me to strip everything, but my main program.
00:09:27 Sarah: So I had some other course things and I had a number of one-on-one offers and I just stripped it all down to the one thing that brought in the most money and took the least amount of time because I had so little time. It was like, take a call, run and make ramen. I… one day, I was on, like a call with potential clients and my kid comes and tries to pretend handcuffed me. And then he discovers that my Bluetooth keyboard and mouse can be taken away from my computer and run into the other room. And the clients are like, oh, it's fine. It's just a kid. I'm like, it’s not fine. I have no keyboard and mouse, right?
00:10:05 Sarah: So it was just, you know, out of necessity that I pared down to only that group program. And thank goodness I did. It was one of the best business decisions I could have ever made. And I constantly remind myself, stay focused, stay focused, stay focused, keep it simple. And now what it looks like is people come to me and, like, ask me if I can do something that I don't usually do. I'll work with them one-on-one if I want to, especially if I think that they're almost ready for my group program, but they just need a little support to get there so that I know I'm not going to be working one-on-one indefinitely with them. Or if I'm excited about what they're doing and I feel like they're going to implement it.
00:10:55 Sarah: My big pet peeve, as the thing I can't do that crushes my soul is when you give clients support and they don't implement. And I just need it for my own sanity for clients to implement. So that's what I really love about the group program and the year-long container. I can be hands-on with them in a way that's affordable to them. And from a time perspective, affordable to me, because my time is still very limited.
00:11:23 Jess: Super helpful. I have two back to back questions. I'll start with the first. If you could just context set about your group program a little bit, like how much is it? How many people are in it? How long does it last? Is it live? Is it modules? Is it a Slack channel? Like, paint the picture of what this amazing group program is. And then I'll follow up with my second question after that.
00:11:45 Sarah: Sure. Well, I'll… let me preface that by saying I'm now in my fifth year, maybe of doing this group program. So it has certainly evolved and I would never, anybody who doesn't have one don't think that these things are like from day one. Day one, I followed that model. I did a Beta launch. It was an eight week live training session. My next one, I re-recorded those trainings and I ran it again for eight weeks, but now they could watch the training and then have a Q&A.
00:12:24 Sarah: But my big lesson, and this is where I would encourage people, test in a short container, but then move to a long container if you really want to get results, especially if what you do is more complex. So I'm not just teaching like a marketing tactic. I am helping executives run their entire organizations better from that leadership level. So there are a lot of pieces involved.
00:12:53 Sarah: So now what it looks like is there is an online curriculum. So when a client enrolls in the program, they get immediate access to the online curriculum, which has a very structured step-by-step. They kind of watch one module a week and they implement things and that's designed to go for about 10 weeks, but it takes some organizations less and some organizations much, much, much longer. And they have weekly group coaching calls with me and they get weekly feedback by email individually on one item a week that they'd like feedback on.
00:13:32 Sarah: And the program currently costs, I have three prices. I've got the pay, in full price for a year. That's my kind of ideal commitment from them because it gives them enough time to really implement. It's 16,500. There's an installment plan. And I also, a breakthrough I made the other year was adding a monthly plan that was just month to month because I've played with, like a trial period that got tricky and the month to month serves a really specific purpose that we can get into if you want, but I'll stop there for a moment.
00:14:08 Jess: Okay, that's really helpful. And we've talked about it before. Cindy loves a good monthly plan. Cashflow, baby. Okay, so that's really helpful. Thank you for setting. Sorry, how many people did you say are in the program at one time?
00:14:22 Sarah: Yeah, I didn't answer that question. So it has varied. It's been as low as four, and it's never really higher than 10. I have thought, I always think how scalable is this? That's a big question for me, cause I guard my time, but actually just redid the calculations and I realized I can do 60 without needing to hire another consultant. I think it's really helpful to know at which point the business model would really change.
00:14:52 Jess: Yeah, that's great. I was going to ask you if you have any additional collaborators or coaches or in the program, but right now it sounds like it's just you.
00:15:02 Sarah: Yeah, and I've had times where I thought that that would be part of my future. And now I know I just don't want to build that business, especially because the coaching I'm doing is such high level. The program is super systematized, and I probably add in a mentorship program, like our accountability program between clients. But I don't need to, you know, I can get, I can make plenty of money and not work that much and not have to worry about replicating myself, which is, you know, it's one thing to say, oh yeah, add another coaches and sure you can train them.
00:15:40 Sarah: But you know what? And I was in the program that Cindy was talking about and the person whose program it was and the mentors that she had hired, I mean, they were great, but they were not her mind. And it was her mind that I was interested in and I know that's what my clients value most in working with me. Some of them say like, "We hire you for your brain, Sarah."
00:16:06 Jess: Yep, yep, totally. I mean, it's a smart brain. Okay, so one of the things that Cindy and I have talked to just a lot on this podcast offline with our peer mastermind is this concept of 10Xing and how when you focus and go deep, it can have exponential results, which sounds like is the ticket for you, both in time and in money. And I loved what you said that your transition to this was out of necessity, because I think sometimes people who try to be strategic about it have a harder time around letting go and cutting, trimming or whatever the term is. And you just were in a go mode, like you didn't really have a lot of time to think about it, you just had to do. So I love that it's worked out so well.
00:17:00 Jess: And I know one of the things that people are wondering is like, those early days of that transition, right? You're going one on one. And then I just know from my experience in doing one to one versus one to many, like, it is different in terms of the marketing, of the outreach, of the pitching. And I'm curious what those early day transitions of even announcing that you're doing this thing have... what did that look like then versus now?
00:17:31 Jess: I'm trying to paint the picture for our listener who aspires to make that transition, but doesn't know where to start and it can feel very overwhelming. And they've got an email list of 50 people and they don't really show up on social media. It's like what are the steps one, two, and three you gotta start with? And then what are the things you do present day to fill your current cohorts?
00:17:57 Sarah: Yeah, well, I still start in the same place I started with back then. I throw some spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. Keep it simple. And if anything, I've gotten more, whenever I wanna test something new, and I've tested a lot of new things. Whenever I want to, the progression has been to be more and more and more simple about how I test it and what resources I put into testing.
00:18:25 Sarah: So originally, I didn't have a big email list. I don't really even know if I can tell you. I did hire someone briefly who did hardcore cold outreach. She networked. She came from a corporate background, and she found clients. And I think that's how that initial beta program, I just said, I'm putting together this beta program. She worked for me very part-time. And I was like, "Can you see if you can get some people on?" She just researched on the internet, called them up and sold them on it, really basic, basic stuff.
00:19:10 Sarah: What it has evolved into, the thing that I needed to get away from, both for individual work, but even this group program, was people wanting proposals. Cause that's just so freaking time consuming. And then once they have a proposal, then they want you to present it to their board after you already presented it to them. And the board doesn't know anything. And you're just like, this is not, you know, at the time when I stopped doing proposals when I ran to this problem, I was selling the thrive program and had less in it for about 8,000. It was almost just under 9,000.
00:19:51 And I was like, this is not a million dollar corporate deal. And I'm not if I spend the time that all you all nonprofits want me to spend on selling you this thing, giving you the medicine, I'm going to have to triple the price because just to cover my cost of selling. Plus I hate the process because I fall in love with the nonprofit. And then when the executive director really wants it and the board says no, I just feel sick. Because I know I can help them and I know they want the help. And they're just being denied it. You know, it's like a grossness that I couldn't live with. And so the selling process has evolved to figure out how I can sell it without a proposal.
00:20:42 Sarah: And now, when I do that one one work, I just tell clients, I'm like, "Listen, I don't do fancy proposals. We've talked about basically what I'm going to offer you. I'm going to send you an email where I'm going to list what you're getting and how much it costs and you sign up by confirming to that email and then I'm going to invoice you and then we're going to schedule." Proposal over. If you don't want to work like that, then we're not a good fit.
00:21:07 Cindy: Oh, this is so juicy. Because yes, like all the things, it can be such a grueling process and organizations can take months and months and months to go through that, or if not years. So I know when we mentioned this in the introduction, part of the Mariah Coz', high ticket hybrid is that she's like, "No sales calls." And I'm curious if you found that works for you or if you've adapted that at all. And if you don't do sales calls, tell us a little bit more about that warm up because I like how you warm people up and then how you do pitch or enroll them in the program.
00:21:54 Sarah: Yeah. So in Mariah's program, she teaches basically this process where people apply to essentially watch a free training. And the free training is a long webinar that's like an extended pitch. And then she gets her clients to enroll, have people enroll high ticket. And the first time I did it, the first two or three times I did it, it worked with my slow clients who are already in the process. Like the first person who signed up literally, I had had that sales call with her the first time a year prior. So having had a sales call with her and having her number two person follow all my weekly live trainings that I'd given for almost a year and then a whole year of nurturing, and then I did the webinar, she signed up.
00:22:49 Sarah: So I knew that I liked this idea because I like teaching, I'm happy on video. And so I knew I was like, oh, okay, I can make this. If this gets her to close, that's great. But now I need to shorten that timeline. So I both needed to shorten the timeline and accept that the timeline was gonna stay long. So just bear with me for a second. So as far as shortening the timeline, I said, I really don't want it to take a year or more, it was more like a year and a half or two years to close. And this was a common story, right? People follow me for a long time and then they finally close. And so I wanted to get people to close faster.
00:23:36 So the big change that is now working really well to close that, and so I had to be really clear, like this is my process for getting people to apply and then close. There is a three webinar sequence. And yes, I can't put them on evergreen. They have to be live. But I would rather do three webinars live on repeat, even for small groups, then do a proposal. So that is the speeding it up.
00:24:13 Sarah: But then I knew it was still gonna be slow. And so what I said to myself is if they're gonna be slow, it's gonna be on my timeline, not on theirs or my process. So I was like, let me build out so that they have all these little steps so that they're always moving. Because I saw this so clearly in the proposal process, you make a proposal and if they say no or not now, what do you do? You can't just like annoyingly email them.
00:24:42 Sarah: So now I have kind of a pre-baked recipe of like seven different things I want them to do. And I actually have my assistant keeping track manually who's done what. So if they came to one of the three webinars, then we're pushing them to attend the other two, because I know they need all three to really make that yes decision.
00:25:06 Sarah: And it took me a while to figure out what three they are. And this stuff is really hard because if you've got a year-long timeline and three different potential webinar topics and so many combinations, and you can't trust the data of any one activity doesn't give you the whole picture.
00:25:24 Jess: Okay, Sarah, we are back for another round of our rapid fire questions. You ready to play?
00:25:30 Sarah: I'm ready.
00:25:31 Jess: You just said in our interview that you really see a diminishing of returns. The more hours you work, sounds like you value your life outside of work. How do you like to spend your free time?
00:2544 Sarah: I'm a sailboat racer. I race with my dad who's 77, although he wasn't well enough to race this last season, but I value spending that time with both my parents. And I'm a mom, which is like another full-time job, single mom of an extra kid. So that takes up a lot of time. And I'm also a homeowner. So I have to do that stuff. And I get extra time. I like cooking. Sometimes I work around my house, but to be honest, I spend a lot of time sailing.
00:26:15 Jess: I love that. We started the conversation learning that you too learn from Mariah Coz and you mentioned some other people in our interview. Who is kind of a maybe undiscovered business coach that you've really gained a lot from?
00:26:31 Sarah: Yeah, definitely Jason Fladlin who I mentioned. He's been trying to become more well known. You mentioned Alex Hormozi. I've certainly followed his stuff. A lot of his stuff is really good, although some of it requires hours that I don't have. Who else? I don't know, there's nuggets to be gained everywhere. There are a lot of helpful people everywhere. So more than any one person, I'd love people to just like, if you think you've learned something useful, implement it before moving on to the next thing and filter through.
00:27:09 Sarah: I teach this to my clients. I have to remind myself before you're trying to figure out if it works as a strategy, you have to decide if it works for you as a person, right? So like Alex Hormozi's grind out these cold outreaches on social media might be amazing, but I am just never ever, ever gonna do that. It's gonna hurt, it's gonna be painful and I'm not gonna do it. So it's not good for me. So I think just like get clear on if you could even do it before you spend too much time trying to make it happen.
00:27:42 Jess: Totally agree. And last question, what is the first thing you drink in the morning?
00:27:47 Sarah: Oh my God, I know this was supposed to be rapid fire, but this summer I gave up caffeine. I mean, I owned a cafe. It would have been like, "Coffee, don't talk to me before coffee." And I still drink decaf. But I also have been drinking this Om mushroom chai stuff, which gives me some energy like coffee. I have to have a hot drink. And sidebar for all you coffee drinkers, being addicted to coffee is like not a medical condition. You can just be freely addicted, but caffeine withdrawal is listed in the DSM-5 as like a psychological condition. And it was so painful, but I'm really, really glad I did it.
00:28:33 Sarah: And for all you moms out there who have kids who are like emotional wrecks first thing in the morning. I'm so glad that I'm not dependent on the caffeine to start functioning, because oftentimes at 6 AM, I gotta be awake and within 10 minutes, ready to deal with a crying child who's gonna refuse to go to school for the fourth time that week.
00:28:57 Jess: Aw, buddy. Okay, cool. Thanks for playing.
00:29:02 Sarah: Thank you. That was fun.
00:29:06 Cindy: Okay, there's so much I love about what you just said. Just for context, our friend Brooke also has like a high ticket program. She has also found that they need multiple pieces of warmup to get in and you have to kind of go through that nurture sequence, which is –
00:29:28 Jess: I mean, would you argue like everyone? I think it's just maybe like our buyer.
00:29:31 Cindy: Yeah, well, and also like we've talked about on the podcast when I launched the Fractional Fundraiser Academy, the people who were buying were the people who listened to the podcast, who downloaded the budget, who attended the open house. People, it's interesting, they need to start investing in the process to take it seriously and to buy into the transformation that they're going to achieve.
00:29:57 Sarah: Can I interrupt you right there for a second? Because one of the things I did with these webinars that made them work is I charged for the webinar. So they literally, smaller numbers, but they literally have to buy in because they need that mindset shift.
00:30:14 Cindy: Yeah. And let's just talk a little bit more about that because I think it's an important point. So tell us a little bit more about what is the buy-in? And you said this is a manual kind of process, but how does it start and how do you manage keeping track of all these things?
00:30:34 Sarah: Yeah, so the first time I decided to just start charging, well, I did two things, because I want them to invest some money because we got to get over this poverty mindset hurdle. And I want them to invest time, because at the end of the day, my client's biggest objection is time. They're short on, it's their biggest problem. And it's their biggest objection. They're already short on time. And it's a little tricky to convince them that spending more time with me is going to make them have more time in their day and spend less time working and more time getting results, right? So it's got like this mind bend.
00:31:08 Sarah: So I took what had previously I had done, like your one hour free webinar. And I'd also done 15-minute micro trainings that were opt in only. And I still had to do some short stuff to just bring people along. But so I made the webinar longer and it really helped me to unlock the work of Jason Fladlien, who I think I might've told you about Cindy, who specializes in webinars. And so they're now one and a half to two hour long webinars. And so people are investing a lot of time and the people who come stay, they stay, they stay.
00:31:50 Sarah: After Q&A and I've invested, I've committed to be there until there is no juice left in the room. And there's usually some people just sitting there, like they don't have any more questions. I'm like, "Okay, you guys just want to hang out with me, right? So come to my next two hour webinar that's happening in a week or two weeks." So I usually have one webinar and then the next one is two weeks later at the same time. And then the third one that they don't have to pay for but they apply for is the following week.
00:32:22 Sarah: So they don't always go through it in this order but when they do, they spent almost two hours with Sarah and then two weeks later they spent two hours with Sarah and then the third week, then following week they spent another two hours with me. By now they're getting really comfortable with hanging out with Sarah. And that's how I like it to feel.
00:32:44 Sarah: And then the money wise, my first one, I just charged $27. I wanted it to be enough to be a little skin in the game, but not so much that anyone could say no to $27. I felt anybody could put it on their own personal credit card and it would be no big deal. Now I have this kind of sliding scale with a psychological twist to it, if anybody wants to go look at one up, you can see a landing page at pivotground.com/staff-up and you will see my sliding scale, which goes from a $25 to $65.
00:33:22 Sarah: And the average amount that I get per attendee is I think between $24 and $27. So it works out the same, but it kind of takes them through a psychological experience because if you want to pay $1.25, you have to click the button that says you're paying the poverty mindset price. If you're game for the 65-hour --
00:33:48 Jess: I wish you all could see Cindy's face.
00:33:51 Cindy: That is genius. Love that.
00:33:55 Jess: What percentage of people click that?
00:33:57 Sarah: Quite a few, but some of them will email and apologize. And sometimes they'll do it –
00:34:05 Jess: Wow. [crosstalk] real turner.
00:34:06 Sarah: Yeah. And I've also found that a lot of people will be repeat attendees. So it's not just go through these three. And that's probably the magic of having live. And I was surprised by that. I was not going to originally remarket to my list who I just marketed. But one day out of the keep it simple, I'm not going to do all that sorting, I just marketed to everybody and there were so many repeat attendees who paid a second time and showed up for a second to two hours that I realized they need to hear it again. And they want to hear it again and again.
00:34:43 Sarah: And it makes me think, Taki Moore, you guys follow his stuff? He's a for-profit coaching consultant person, but he has this line that really identified to me what I was doing. He says bingers are buyers. Like that's it. So I've given them some webinars to binge on and to binge on live. And then, but the other piece, they weren't just any webinars, right? So they had to be webinars that really helped deal with objections.
00:35:18 Sarah: So going back to Jason Fladlien, who has so much good stuff on objections. He calls them smashing objections and he's like, you've got to do it up front. So now when I think about building a webinar or doing any sort of marketing, I'm like, "What are all the objections?" And I could never really get clear on objections until I did his trainings and stuff on objections.
00:35:39 Sarah: And my first webinar in the series, ideally, is really about all this board's decision making stuff. Because I identified like if I only had to sell to executive directors, I'd have like a 99% close rate and business would be awesome. But I don't because it's the boards who don't know what's going on. And so in that first webinar, I also had to rethink how boards were working because it's a problem my clients were experiencing but kill two birds with one stone, I can now help nonprofits completely fix their boards. And in the process, I teach them that their board should not be approving any expenses or even the budget for that matter.
00:36:18 Sarah: So when they get to the point where they're receiving my pitch, they already have the training that they are in no way going to present this to their boards. And if they do have a board who still requires approval, I have an alternate experience they can do with their boards where I will teach their boards that they will not be approved any expenses.
00:36:39 Cindy: Okay, this is so genius. I have so many questions. Okay, I wanna talk more about the objections because I think that that is something that we all struggle with and so easily make like... I hear from so many consultants like, I don't want to be salesy and stuff like that. And I think we associate those two together as like objections and that trying to overcome objections makes me that sleazy salesperson. So I want to hear a little bit more about the kind of objections you build into your trainings.
00:37:17 Cindy: But before I have like one really quick little question which is do you offer replays when you launch? And I want to ask how often you launch, but we'll come back to that. But do you offer, like, do they have to be live with you in order to really move through things?
00:37:35 Sarah: I do offer replays and I'm considering not doing it because I'm looking at the numbers, almost nobody watches the replay. And it's only people who showed up live, really, who want to go back and rewatch it. And so I'm really... I'm either going to just not offer them, or offer. I thought about testing one of those, like if you come, it's free, but if you want the replay, you have to pay kind of thing.
00:38:02 Cindy: Or like just request it even, kind of like give them an action to take.
00:38:08 Sarah: Yeah. And it's so few people, I'm like, why did I even spend the few minutes that it took to download it and re-upload it to YouTube? Because I'm like, really, you're not watching. But people always ask about it, they want it. And I think, you know, kind of tying that into objections over the years, I've really thought about what do people say their objection is and what do they really want?
00:38:31 Sarah: You know, as a marketer, I always used to use the example like you may say you want to lose weight, but I could just as easily sell you an ice cream cone because probably what you're really wanting is to feel better. And I can make an ice cream cone sound like it's gonna make you feel better, probably even more easily than some painful weight loss program. Cause we all know that ice cream cones make people feel better. And if I just tap into what is it that you really want and as opposed to what you say you want, so what everybody says their objection is money.
00:39:09 Sarah: And I have... And I can tell you for everybody listening, it's not money. It's never, ever money. But if you need proof, some of the things that I needed as proof are I'd run like, you know, enroll in the next two weeks or one week and you can save $3,000. And organizations who are already basically yes, they'd hire, enroll a day or two after the thing was gone. And they didn't care that they were paying thousands of dollars more.
00:39:45 Sarah: Because it's not the money. It's never the money. And they just prove that to you, but they always say it is because they struggle with poverty mindset. Not real, it's not really the money. So you have to overcome, you have to help them kind of shut down their poverty mindset, which is a different objection than I don't have the money. I mean, every now and then there's a true, I can't afford it, like literally, they've started a new nonprofit, they gave up their day job, they have zero money, in which case the real answer is, you shouldn't be starting a nonprofit because you have no money to live on.
00:40:28 Sarah: And the real objection for my services is time. They're worried they won't have the time to implement. And that's the one I really have to drive home. And then the other one in my case, and probably for many people, is that board approval problem. I want it, but I can't get my board to approve it. That's a hard objection because it's not a psychological objection. It's like a tactical objection.
00:40:54 Sarah: And I do have one client who pays that month-to-month fee because her board has to approve over a certain threshold of a contract. She pays significantly more without a one-year contract, but it's a loophole that she doesn't have to present it to her board or get approval because there's no contract. It's just month to month and the monthly fee is less than she has to get approved. Another example of why it's not the money. And originally she said it was the money, but it was the full amount of a contract having to get the board approval, not the actual that she couldn't afford it.
00:41:32 Jess: This is really great. I have more questions, but I just want to like hit home on two examples that I think might be helpful to folks listening. So right now there's like a marketing, email marketing conference summit, online summit going on called like Guru Summit. And it's very much no on demand. Like they're outwardly telling people there will not be recordings of this. We want as many people there live. And so I... and this is the first time they've run it. So I'm a little curious on like what the results are. If I can like find a recap podcast with these hosts later to like tell us how that worked out for them.
00:42:12 Jess: But I was like, that's interesting because it is so annoying how many people ask if there's a replay and then even the work of providing it is also quite a hassle. And I wonder what happens if you just eliminate that. You're like, if you really want to be there you'll figure it out. The second point, and I don't love this example or who this is coming from, but I'll tell it anyways. So I saw a reel from Alex Hormozi, which is like the bro of all bros. And he was using an example of how his wife, I think her name is Layla drives like $100,000 Hummer. And he's like, if I found someone on the street and was like, "Hey, if you give me $10,000, I will give you this Hummer." He was like, people will figure out how to find $10,000.
00:43:01 Jess: They'll go to friends and family, they'll put it on a credit card, they'll look in their couch cushions. He was like, it's always about the value, it's never about the money. And I was like, that for me was a really helpful picture on that objection. And so I'm sure you all can find it on his Instagram account, but I was like, it's always about the value, it's not about the money, even if it's at a high price point, so thank you.
43:28 Jess: Okay, we are running out of time, sadly. And we'll probably have to have you back on because I have so many questions like on your top of funnel, but also like launching... I have so many more questions and we just don't have time to like dive into it. So I think what we'll do to compromise is ask you for your juiciest, truest confession when it comes to business. What is yours? Tell the fine folks, Sarah.
00:43:58 Sarah: Oh my God. There's the secret I keep for myself and the secret that probably I don't tell other people. So I'll tell you both. The less exciting one that I keep for myself is that I've struggled with ads. And at the end of the day, if I really look at the data over time, my Facebook ads have worked and they've been a better investment of my time and money than most other strategies I've used.
00:44:28 Jess: Ooh, God, I want to ask questions about that. Can you tell us quickly what your other methods are really quick? What other things have you tried?
00:44:35 Sarah: I mean, I've tried them all. We should have a podcast on it because I have done them all. Speaking on stages, joint venture partners or strategic partners, other types of stages, partnerships that I've done, lead magnets, organic social.
00:44:58 Jess: And they work, you think they work the best out of all of them?
00:45:01 Sarah: I'm pretty sure if I really added up my data of everybody who ever joined my program, you know, there's never a clear winner, which is what makes it so freaking hard, but I'm pretty sure it is Facebook.
00:45:14 Jess: Wow, okay, that's a confession. If I, yeah, I know that is, and I wonder if it has a little bit to do with like there's not a lot of nonprofit consultants or people who run programs like ours who are running ads. And so the opportunity is vast, but it is a tricky, slippery sucker to figure out, that's for sure.
00:45:34 Sarah: And I've started to get better at it because I was having this problem and so few people do it. And I've paid people to do it. And then I decided I was gonna try to figure it out myself. It's because when you run a nonprofit ad on Facebook and YouTube is my next thing that I'm gonna go into, your ads get stuck in learning mode because it can't find your audience. And I did figure out a way to make it find my audience. And I now just am learning ads from somebody new who uses the same way. I'm like, oh my God, that's what I've been doing. So we can talk about that. I'm not gonna give away that juicy secret today.
00:46:09 Jess: Yeah, no keep that one.
00:46:09 Sarah: Yeah, but my other confession, I always encourage people to just be really real about money. And at times when like during the pandemic, at times, in a good month. So track your hours. And one of the best things I started doing for myself this year is I now pay myself by the hour. And I am now closely tracking. And so I have learned that 90 hours a month is good for business, but bad for me. 45 hours a month is good for me, but bad for business.
00:46:49 Sarah: And so I have been working on getting into this 65 hour to 70. I'm finding out, is it 60, is it 70? Like I'm honing in on the exact number of hours per month. I need to work in order for my business to generate enough money to pay myself. And then I track my hourly rate. So I now have to know that to bring my hours down, I'm always watching the most revenue generating activities because it literally affects my paycheck.
00:47:19 Sarah: If I work too little and tank the income, I have a low hourly rate, although it's not so terrible, right? I'm not overly killing myself, but this has been huge. But the confession is, in the past, when I had to work too little, like 12 interrupted hours, it was so hard. I had to stop all my marketing activities. And so it didn't hit me immediately financially. But the next year, I went a whole year without getting new clients and I really didn't make enough personally.
00:47:57 Sarah: My business made enough, but my profitability and my own ability to pay myself was in the tank. And I went through times of not paying myself. I've been through several times of running out of money completely in the business. I reached my last time, you know, there was a period where I said I'm gonna run out of money three more times and then I'm never gonna run out of money again. And I ran out of money three more times and I've never run out of money again.
00:48:22 Sarah: But I knew that there'd still be times in my business where I had to stop paying myself. And I did that in that period where my hours had to go way down. I had to stop paying myself again many years into my business. But I knew I'd make it through. It helps if you've run out of money completely a few times, it gets easier. But I said, this is the last time I don't pay myself.
00:48:44 Sarah: And it's taken, because my time is so limited for being a parent and other reasons, it's taken very careful, focused work. But it's really hard to be running a successful business and not paying yourself. And I was just looking at, you know, this year compared to the year before last, and I'm gonna do around 120,000 might end up 130 for the year, which is way smaller total revenue than my company used to be.
00:49:20 Sarah: But so interestingly, the year before last, I did almost the same number in revenue. I barely paid myself and I ended the year in a loss. And this year, the same top line revenue, I've paid myself well, and I'm gonna end the year with profit on top, significant, you know, like probably between 20 and $30,000 in profit on top of paying myself because, and so your top line numbers or whatever, I've had my company be much bigger top line, but really focus on.
00:49:55 Sarah: And I pay myself as a W2 employee. And so I know that my profit is real profit. It's not just my salary. And that's what really, really matters. And it was tracking that hourly rate that really reminded me that for me, 90, for so many people, 90 hours a month sounds like so little work, but to acknowledge and say to myself, that's too much for me. That puts me in overwhelm mode.
00:50:26 Sarah: And then to put a dollar per hour number next to it, then I felt so much better because I felt terrible. I'm not working that much compared to other people and I'm not making that much money. But when I started doing it this different way, I'm like, oh, my hourly rate is actually really good. And that felt so much better.
00:50:49 Jess: So helpful. You're so wise.
00:50:51 Cindy: So good.
00:50:52 Jess: Where can people find you and learn more about your work?
00:50:56 Sarah: Sure, pivotground.com.
00:51:00 Jess: Thank you. We appreciate you being here.
00:51:01 Sarah: Oh, my pleasure.
00:51:05 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.
00:51:16 Jess: Number one, post the screenshot of this episode to your Instagram stories or LinkedIn profile and tag Cindy and I so we can repost you.
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00:51:29 Jess: And number three, leave a positive review on Apple podcasts so that we can continue to grow and reach new listeners.
00:51:35 Cindy: And of course, make sure you subscribe so you can get the latest and greatest interviews as they drop every Thursday.
00:51:42 Jess: And to our fellow nonprofit coaching and consulting friends, remember, we're an open book and here to answer your burning biz questions.
00:51:50 Cindy: See you next time.