Kicking Off Confessions with Jess and Cindy
Tune into a behind the scenes conversation with Jess and Cindy as we share what you can expect from our new podcast for nonprofit-serving coaches and consultants.
In this podcast, we are giving you access to the business leaders who serve nonprofits as their clients - you know - the people who truly get it. 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.
We’re kicking things off with our own confessions - and it’s juicy!
Highlights:
Working with nonprofit clients is different than other clients and many “experts” and “thought leaders” in the entrepreneur and small business space just don’t get it.
There’s power in saying no in getting you to the business of your dreams
Find your community! It’s so much easier to go through this journey with others who get it.
Making money as a consultant isn’t evil - but it’s hard to break away from the beliefs carried over from our sector around money and pay.
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
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,
[00:00:05] Jess: and I'm Jess Campbell. We're two former in-house nonprofit pros, turned coaches and consultants to purpose driven organizations.
[00:00:13] 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.
[00:00:22] 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.
[00:00:32] 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.
[00:00:53] 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.
[00:01:13] Cindy: Listen in as these leaders share their insights, their numbers. And the good, the bad and the ugly. When it comes to building a nonprofit coaching or consulting business, we're gonna empower you to make the power moves that give you the income and freedom you set out to create from day one.
[00:01:29] Jess: You ready? Let's go. Woohoo. We're so pumped, you've tuned into the confessions podcast where we're pulling back the curtain on all things, nonprofit coaching and consulting to keep things super fun, we're doing a giveaway to celebrate our launch.
[00:01:47] Cindy: Woohoo. We've rounded up our four favorite business goodies to help you build your business to enter, all you have to do is share your favorite episode on social media, tagging out in the boons underscore and Cindy wagman.com underscore coaching
[00:02:04] Jess: or DM us a screenshot of your subscription rating or review.
[00:02:09] Cindy: The giveaway ends on September 30th.
[00:02:13] Cindy & Jess: Good, good luck.
[00:02:14] Jess: Hey listeners I'm Jess.
[00:02:17] Cindy: And I'm Cindy and we're so excited to welcome you to The Confessions Podcast with Jess and Cindy
[00:02:25] Jess: officially.
[00:02:26] Cindy: Woohoo. Welcome. This is our sort of kickoff episode and we wanted to just, again, like our podcast is so much about pulling back the curtain that we thought we'd walk the walk, pull back the curtain and share with you some of our confessions about running a nonprofit serving business, show you what it's all about.
[00:02:44] Jess: So who wants to go first? Who has a confession about something that didn't work well in our business or something we've tried and failed at? Or maybe it's something we've invested in or...
[00:03:01] Cindy: I'm... kind of embarrassed about, so for those of you who don't know my business called the Good Partnership, serves small nonprofits in helping them to fundraise, grown quite a bit over the seven years that I've been in business. And I've played around with marketing specifically advertising like social media advertising. And, never really felt like I got great results or certainly not the results that like all the other people were saying they were getting. And I was like, I should have known, to just stop there and like change my expectations. But in, because we know nonprofits behave differently when they're buying things than other consumers, but no, I invested like $4,500 in a Facebook advertising course and I regret it. I really felt like I knew 90% of the stuff. To begin with, and I don't think it added any value. And I think I was just trying to chase after this, like dream that all these other business owners were saying, they were achieving, you know, have people buy micro products or trip wires and build your like pay to build your email list or get paid, to build, build your email list and all this other stuff. And I was like, our audience behaves differently. So yeah, that was like, that's one of my most shameful confessions.
[00:04:30] Jess: Well, I think to just piggyback off of that confession, can we just confess that building an email list when your audience is nonprofit, organizations is hard and I always say that. I have spent like over six figures on my brain and the two hardest things I have ever done are building an email list and getting my kid to poop in the potty. Like I deserve a PhD in both and both were extremely challenging and yeah, I feel like the, you know, Amy Porter Fields of the world or like the Marie Forleos of the world are like, do this one thing and da, da, da. And it's like, Nope. It's so much harder than I ever expected, frankly.
[00:05:16] Cindy: Yeah. And like, I, I'm not saying don't invest in yourself and in learning new things because I just posted onTikTok. I think like I just got my year end finances. Last year, I spent $25,000 on my professional development and training and where I'm investing that now is so much more strategic and helping me level up as a coach as you know, my skills, but not necessarily like selling to nonprofits or advertising or those like super generic, like builds your digital business this way. It can be really demoralizing when you invest in those things. And you're like, why am I not getting the results? But I definitely still believe in investing in ourselves, just understanding how our audience behaves differently.
[00:06:12] Jess: Yeah. I mean, I too last fall, I, gosh, it's already been a year. I invested like $3,800 to work with this coach that I think is a marketing genius. I think she's the bee's knees. She's amazing. And I paid her $3,800 for three hours of her time. And I just knew that it was gonna solve one very specific issue that I was working for. Remember, I made the payment in like June and we didn't have our session until September or October. So you can imagine I was chomping at the bit, ready to go. We have our session. And the way she kind of works is you have a session. And then she goes off for like 24 hours and makes you this plan or delivers these deliverables, whatever. And the next morning we were due to have a wrap up call midday. And she, I forget emailed or texted me very early in the morning and just said, “Hey, can I speak to you?” And I thought, oh goodness, something has happened. Like I was so concerned.
[00:07:16] Cindy: You failed as a business owner!
[00:07:19] Jess: And well, is that something like emergency-wise happened? Oh, just, she was like having to reschedule or cancel or something and we hop on the phone and she's like, so listen, I just have to tell you I've been up all night. I even woke up at five o'clock in the morning to try and get my head in the right space, but your audience is so foreign to me. That the amount of work I would need to do to understand your ICA, your ideal client avatar is, is just beyond me. And luckily she's a totally awesome human and refunded me my money, but I was just so heartbroken because I thought, oh my gosh, if she can't help me, literally, there's no one. And I think that in the nonprofit space, to your point, we're always looking outwardly to these quote unquote experts. But when you serve people who are entrepreneurs or small business owners, and they're the ones calling the shots, it's just a totally different sales process and buyer psychology compared to who our client is because they have, I mean, don't get me started on mindset issues, but they also have things like board of approvals, like the money isn't theirs and the decision making isn't always there. And yeah, that's like a real confession for sure.
[00:08:43] Cindy: I have another confession, but before I do, and what you said, sort of triggered this confession, but one of the, my favorite stories is I actually had a client say yes to a proposal two and a half years after I sent it. I was like, how they buy is different but you were talking about working with this, coach or consultant and she basically fired you. You know, just cuz she couldn't help you. And one of my confessions is that I've said yes to businesses that I should not have said yes to, especially in the early days. And this is something like I really work with my clients, like my coaching clients on now is like having the courage to turn down work and. Really hard early on,
[00:09:32] Jess: It's so hard, especially when you've gone all in, you have bills to pay. I always say like momentum creates momentum and so it can feel like saying no puts a real break on that. But man, is it not worth it? Oh my gosh. It's not worth it.
[00:09:51] Cindy: I mean, there have been, I have said no, even in the early days. Oh my goodness. I'll tell this story because I feel like our listeners will relate. And it's one of my favorite stories and I don't tell in much detail because it was so horrendous, but I went to a business development meeting. So kind of like a pitch meeting, even though we don't pitch, with this executive director. It was a man and it was in his home office. So in his living room and it was me and my two female colleagues, totally like, you know, fine. That's that wasn't the, well, that sort of sets up the dynamic anyways. He was like, yeah, if you can do this for me. And he basically like, Was like, yeah, like you kind of said, you can whore yourselves out. Like he definitely used that language and I was like, what. I was so shocked. I did not even know how to respond in the moment that I couldn't even like call him out for it. I was, and actually that was one of the things I really spent a lot of time reflecting on, like, how should I respond in that situation? It was so inappropriate. And like his feelings and beliefs around fundraising. It's not unusual, but like, you. Say that to people. And that I couldn't even say no in the moment he was like, great, let's do this. We're working together. And I had to follow up by email and say, unfortunately, it's not the right fit, but like turned, so I have turned down clients, but like learning to pick up signals that are a little more subtle than that one.
[00:11:33] Jess: Yeah.
[00:11:33] Cindy: Around what doesn't make a good client has taken me some time.
[00:11:38] Jess: I don't know if this is worse, because I knew in this confession that I wasn't a good fit for this person, but a fellow nonprofit consultant said, Hey, I have a referral for you. And upon doing some research, I just knew off the bat. It was not gonna be a right fit, but because I'm a connector, I thought I'll do a phone call with this person. And past business to someone else that maybe isn’t more appropriate fit and to make a long story short, he wanted me to be the fundraiser. and I would only earn a commission off of what I was raised. And even though I did not want the business, I told him that was unethical. He was basically shouting at me on this zoom call and then he hung up. I've never been hung up on zoom, but he hung up and because I'm a storyteller and I do a lot of content. I turned that into probably my one and only viral LinkedIn post and so it just also goes to show that sometimes these really shitty experiences and stories can make some of your best content.
[00:12:43] Cindy: Yeah.
[00:12:43] Jess: And so to turn that negative into a positive, it's always there, but yes, I have officially been hung up on zoom.
[00:12:52] Cindy: Love that. I love that. And yeah, I do think like, I mean, what I admire about you is your storytelling. And I'm constantly learning from you and trying to copy you, but give you prompts. I love that. Those stories, those hardships, I think this podcast relevant to our audience is because we've all been there, not, not that all of us have been hung up on, but like a lot of those, those horror stories we share and we don't have a space to talk about them.
[00:13:25] Jess: Switching directions. I have another confession. Yeah. That I think maybe I've told you, but maybe not. This is something I've been reflecting on quite a lot lately. And if I was to go back five years and do my business all over again, I would niche down so hard and so fast. I, at the beginning, really prided myself on being a former director of development. A one or two person shop. So I know how to do a little bit of everything. And because so much of fundraising is multi piece. You know, you're never just doing emails or you're never just doing an ask or you're never just doing marketing. It's like real combo of things. I thought that leaning on that kind of general skill was benefiting me. And what it's done, I think is ask people, ask like, wait, what does Jess really do? And versus some of our friends, like I'll just shout some people out. Tanya Bhattacharya, the LinkedIn queen personal brand thought leadership, or I think of Juliar Donez who goes deep on all things, major gifts or even Rachel Bear Bower who is the person I send, if you are a small shop executive director. Yeah. I just think there's such brilliance in that. And as someone that's five years in and it's really challenging to be like, well, actually we're going deep into this, which if I could pick, it would probably be something around storytelling or emails and that's literally all I do for people, even though I don't wanna work with clients at all. I just really wish I would've had that. Either foresight or mentor or, you know, biz bestie, like you are to me to be like, not niche enough, go nature, skinny.
[00:15:17] Cindy: How do we not find each other before? Like we basically met on...
[00:15:21] Jess: I was a fan of yours. I've been listening to the podcast since I started my business. So...
[00:15:27] Cindy: oh my gosh. I didn't know that. Thank you.
[00:15:30] Jess: That's true. Yeah. It's how I know about. I don't know if it's specifically Loom. I think it was you, you had some really great episode with a different company. Yes. Like blew my mind. And now I talk about Loom every damn day. No, I've listened to you for a long time.
[00:15:48] Cindy: Aww. That makes you, I feel like the, one of the things that for me came out of the pandemic was like, I feel like I know a lot of people in the Canadian market and I just didn't have that sort of like awareness of all the, the folks in the states doing really great work like there. And I have so many thoughts running through my head right now, but like I knew of like Gale Perry, What's the other woman, Joan, Gary, sorry. Their names was just so familiar.
[00:16:16] Jess: Totally.
[00:16:16] Cindy: And like Pamela Grow and like those people, and I, you know, felt like when I started. And I wanna talk about niching down. Exactly. Because like, when I started a lot of stuff didn't exist in our sector and I was learning from all these other places and creating, right. My business model now for anyone who knows is very unique in most spaces. But at that time, like I did not know. I didn't know everyone. And now I feel like I know so many amazing people and like have met really amazing friends, but also people who we can hop on a call and like just chat through any challenges that we have and you get it, like, you know, and give good advice because you know, the space that I'm in, that I just hadn't found anywhere else.
[00:17:07] Jess: No. I mean, I think it's something that we both try and teach our clients too, like attach yourself to other people who get it, right? Yes. And if you're a nonprofit coach, you're a consultant or service provider listening in on this and you are kind of off on your own island. Or like I say, out in the boons get off. Go find some people like one, two, you know, it's been just so helpful to have someone just a text away, a slack message away.
[00:17:36] Cindy: Yeah.
[00:17:37] Jess: Yeah. I confess, I wasn't great at that at the beginning either. And it's changed my business. Yeah.
[00:17:44] Cindy: And one thing I'll say 99% of the people I've met in the sector are so generous. Like other consultants I definitely, at least the ones that I've met and the people I wanna align myself with and build those relationships with like, there's no feelings of competition or anything like that. There's such camaraderie and support, that I think. It really builds community and I'm going to like plug Jess has a slack community. That's a great place to connect with other consultants and coaches, that we'll have to put in the show notes for this. As you said, it can be lonely and it can you feel like all those other like business gurus or like thought leaders are not like they don't get what we do and they don't so
[00:18:32] Jess: literally I tried paying. one. They don't get it. Can we talk about money for a second? A confession of mine, truly. If I did not have to get paid to do this work, I would not get paid. But what I mean by that is like, I need money. I have a certain lifestyle that I prefer to live. It's not off of rice and beans, but I really don't like that part about running a small business that the money part kind of falls on me. And I don't know if that's compounded by the fact that we work with nonprofits or if I just don't like that part of it. Like I wish to live sometimes in the middle ages and we could swap like, we bar scooter. I don't love the money and the confession that it is leading to because I know you're so much stronger in this space is that it's also resulted in the undercharging for my products and services to this day.
[00:19:41] Cindy: Yeah. And I think like, we all struggle with undercharging because our clients are nonprofits and they keep telling us. We have no money. We have no money. And like, that's, that's for sure hard. I mean, I've tried to pinpoint where I get my money mindset from, because I also not apologetic about the money that I earn and what it does for me and my family and my kids. I want them to enjoy a certain privilege and I wanna enjoy, so like right now we're planning a trip to Greece next summer, and we are renting a private boat with the skipper for a week and I can't wait and my kids can't wait. And those are things. Having my own business is affording me the opportunity to do with my family. And I, sorry about that over the years, tried to figure out like where that mindset has come from for me, because I've always felt that I've always felt that and I've worked. I think a lot of people in our sector have worked since they were teenagers, like right through. And I've always, yeah, I've always worked my butt off and I will say like, this is a tangent, but. This summer, like as we're recording, this is the first time in my running my business where I've actually taken like prioritized time. I'm still making good money, but I've structured things so that I'm working less hard for that money. And that's a big shift for me cause I'm like a workaholic and there's a whole other conversation there.
[00:21:18] That's my confession. The advice that I've been given that I've really liked is you just gotta start charging and when you get booked like well I've heard people say, after three clients pay paying one price, increase it, like start to push that. I've also always done value based pricing, which is like, you're not paying for my hours. I've researched what other people charge for things. And I try be, you know, reasonable within that. And I learned how to do things efficiently so that it, I increased my profit margins on it. Yeah, like the pricing piece, there's an art to it. It's not an exact science, like it's, it's the reality. Although I do have a friend who had a, like years and years ago, she did a, she called it Barter Babe Project, where she lived a year off of bartering only. So there you go, Jess but…
[00:22:15] Jess: God, it sounds exhausting.
[00:22:16] Cindy: Greatest services for other things. And like she's a financial advisor anyway, she's super cool and super smart. Everyone has their money stories and those origins are unique to all of us, right? Like very, very often. These are thoughts and beliefs. That we have and are formed in our early years. Like what? Her parents' relationships with money. What did money mean in terms of our self worth and value? And what were the stories around money? Like a lot of people have stories around like hard work and money. For me, and I'll be like, again, confession or super open. Money for me and earning good money for me was very early on in my life. Or like when I was in my teens, I did not wanna have to rely on anyone financially. I wanted, I saw what money did with my parents and their divorce and the subsequent life decisions they made afterwards and how money. Drove a lot of those decisions for them. And I was like, that's never gonna be me.
[00:23:23] Jess: .And so what happened? Totally. Yeah. I have a lot more work to do for sure. I just know that the clients that I have had where I undercharge tend to be my least, my least favorite and the most work and the ones where I charge the most end up being like my ride dies. Yes. And. The confession is, I don't really wanna work one on one with clients at all anymore, that's been a shift I've been working on for the last year and a half, but I just know that people really struggle out there with the money stuff and especially charging nonprofits. And more often than not, I'm seeing people. Really struggle to live any kind of lifestyle, let alone the one they want because they're having to work double or triple just to make it work.
[00:24:17] Cindy: Yeah. Confession as well. Like I also don't wanna do much one on one work or at least the one on one work I'm doing now is with other coaches and consultants who serve nonprofits. I'm not actually working with nonprofits directly anymore. But the actual confession is that it takes time to get there. I think so many of us are sold this idea that like, you can just start that way. And I'm, I've been in business for seven years. And like I said, this is the first summer where I feel like, or the first time in those seven years where I felt like, okay, I actually. Don't have to work like crazy to get the results that I want and it's taken me a long time to get there. So that's the other confessions thing that you and I have talked about and we, a lot of the episodes in this podcast, we're gonna talk about like, you don't, it's like celebrities, right? Or like bands that like, Get big, all of a sudden, no they've been working behind the scenes quietly growing steadily to get to that point.
[00:25:25] Jess: There's so many confessions that we could probably cover and we will cover . And for anyone else that has a confession that they want to share, feel free to direct message either Cindy or I and we can use that information and turn it into an episode because that's what this whole podcast. Is about, is, you know, just really opening up everything in a really transparent way. I'm like the queen of transparency, because I have just super struggled to figure out and dissect how other business owners serving nonprofits are making it work. And if I can help and Cindy, I know you feel this way too. If I can help people move along faster or figure it out, you know, more efficiently, like, amen. Like let's do that because high tides RA all ships. And so yeah, this is kind of therapeutic.
[00:26:19] Cindy: Yeah. And I'm so excited to give you our listeners sort of this teaser or intro into what you can expect from our conversations. I wanna talk a little bit about that because I'm excited and I know Jess is too. On September 8th, our guests are Khan Palmer, RIA, Wong, and John and Becky from We Are For Good, and they are all amazing. I feel like all of those people have businesses that you and I have, like, drooled over. We're like, oh, we wanna know how they've done this, and they're gonna share how they've done this. And then...
[00:26:56] Jess: I mean, yeah, what an honor, you know, that they say yes to us and we're not asking them. You know, softball questions, we're asking them the nitty gritty, really detailed ones. And so it's just such an honor that anyone would share about their business in such a transparent way so that all of you can listen in and hear and learn about it. And so, yeah, we're so excited to kick this podcast off. Yeah. With the best of the best, for sure.
[00:27:22] Cindy: The best of the best. And then. Going forward, just so you know what to expect as listeners, we're gonna sort of rotate through. We have nonprofit business owners, people who've been doing this work, Jess and I are gonna have some more conversations, candid conversations like this about very specific topics. and we've brought in some of our favorite, not specific to nonprofit experts who we know, understand the nonprofit market. so anyone from like, PR to, money mindset to like there...
[00:27:57] Jess: pricing, marketing 60 on stages, get ready. We've got it, all the things. So that's what you can expect coming up.
[00:28:05] Cindy: We're so grateful for you to share this time with us and hopefully get some really juicy information to help you in your work.
[00:28:15] Jess: We'll see you on September 8th. See you then.
[00:28:19] 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 join your support in one of three ways.
[00:28:30] Jess: Number one, post the screenshot of this episode to your Instagram stories or LinkedIn profile and tag Cindy and I. So we currently post you
[00:28:38] Cindy: Number two, share this podcast with a fellow nonprofit culture consult.
[00:28:43] Jess: And number three, leave a positive review on Apple Podcast so we can continue to grow and reach new listeners.
[00:28:49] Cindy: And of course, make sure you subscribe so you can get the latest and greatest interviews as they drop every Thursday
[00:28:56] Jess: and to our fellow nonprofit coaching and consulting friends. Remember we're an open book and here to answer your burning bizz questions. See you next time.