Why Popular Growth Tactics Fall Short for Nonprofit Consultant with Natalie Eckdahl
“If you are wanting to grow, there is nothing wrong with being a solo consultant...but if you are wanting to have more impact...then we’re going to need to have some team and to get you out of all of the client work.”"- Natalie Eckdahl
Why Popular Growth Tactics Fall Short for Nonprofit Consultant with Natalie Eckdahl
What should nonprofit consultants do when growth starts to feel like hitting a wall? In today’s episode of Confessions, Jess and I are thrilled to welcome Natalie Ekdahl, CEO of Biz Chix Inc., a powerhouse coach for nonprofit consultants who want to scale without burning out. Natalie shares her no-nonsense approach to building a lucrative consulting business that prioritizes both financial success and personal freedom—no more trading time for dollars! We dive into common pitfalls consultants face when hitting growth bottlenecks, and Natalie unpacks why traditional business models and advice don’t always work for nonprofits. This episode is packed with actionable advice on how to create a sustainable path for growth that aligns with your strengths and values as a nonprofit consultant.
So, if you’re at capacity, but ready to grow, get comfy, because Natalie shares how to turn overwhelm into opportunity and the practical steps to make it happen. Whether it’s tackling pricing, setting boundaries, or the big question of who and when to hire, we cover the puzzle pieces you need for your next level of success.
Key Takeaways:
5 Key Takeaways:
Positioning is Everything - Natalie emphasizes the importance of defining a clear niche and service expertise to attract high-quality clients who are ready to pay for your unique value.
Overcoming the “One-to-Many” Myth - Digital courses and one-to-many models can look tempting, but Natalie breaks down why they’re often not sustainable for consultants with smaller audiences or niche markets like nonprofits.
The Value of Micro-Positions - When it comes to hiring, starting small with targeted micro-positions (like admin support) can buy back your time without the overwhelm of a big team.
Boundaries & Mindset Shifts - Building a thriving consulting practice means setting clear boundaries with clients, learning to say no, and tackling mindset barriers around pricing and hiring.
Nonprofit Audiences Require Unique Approaches - Unlike B2C businesses, nonprofit clients often need additional consideration around budgeting, approvals, and relationship-building—things quick-sale tactics often overlook.
Timestamp summary:
[00:00:00] Jess and Cindy kick off with a light-hearted discussion on time zones.
[00:01:17] Natalie introduces her work: helping consultants scale without burnout.
[00:03:22] Discussion on why nonprofit consultants don’t need one-to-many business models.
[00:07:40] Natalie shares how nonprofit consultants can build high-revenue businesses quickly.
[00:08:34] The myth of passive income debunked for consultants.
[00:10:15] Deep dive into why “One-to-Many” models don’t work for nonprofits.
[00:12:42]Game time! Jess, Cindy, and Natalie name business gurus and why their advice often doesn’t translate for nonprofits.
[00:19:51] Building passive income through a team model vs. courses.
[00:21:27] Natalie shares tips on growing a consulting practice without burnout.
[00:24:15] Advice for generalist consultants ready to hire and specialize.
[00:25:44] The concept of micro-positions and how they benefit your business.
[00:32:54] Strategies for organizing project management and admin support.
[00:33:52] Common pitfalls when hiring for nonprofit consulting.
[00:39:18] Natalie’s confession: fears around hiring and mindset challenges.
Find Us Online: https://www.confessionswithjessandcindy.com
Connect with Natalie Eckdahl:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalieeckdahl/
Website: https://bizchix.com/
Podcast #1: https://nataliemba.com/The-Biz-of-Nonprofit-Consultants-Podcast
Podcast #2: https://bizchix.com/category/podcast/bizchix/
Connect with Cindy:
Cindy Wagman Coaching: cindywagman.com
Fractional Fundraising Network: fractionalfundraising.co/
LinkedIn: ca.linkedin.com/in/cindywagman
Connect with Jess:
Out In the Boons: outintheboons.me
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jesscampbelloutintheboons/
Resources
Transcript:
[00:01:31] Hey Jess. Good morning. Good afternoon from the east coast. I was just complaining once again that the world is revolving around the east coast time frame. I'm still drinking my morning smoothie. Oh well as my kids would say womp womp. I know. Poor Jess. I'll, I'll stay on the west coast. Yeah. I know the world doesn't revolve around us.
[00:02:00] Yeah, I have to say I am envious of your California, like lifestyle. So I'll give you that. It's probably worth it. we were just chatting offline before we hit record with our guest today, Natalie Ekdahl, who's the CEO of Biz Chicks, and I couldn't wait to hit record because I feel like there's so much.
[00:02:22] There's so much. Yeah. There's a lot. Like we could just talk forever. and so let's just dive into it. Natalie, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here and I do miss the West coast cause I'm a Southern California, third generation Southern Californian and we moved to Eastern Tennessee about three Three and a half years ago.
[00:02:44] but I do enjoy being on the Eastern time. It does help in business for me. Cause so many of my clients are on this time zone. So, but thank you for having me. I'm excited. Yeah, such a pleasure. And I feel like we could have a whole episode talking about time zones, the pros and cons and all of that.
[00:03:00] but Natalie, for those who don't know you already, let us know what you do and how you get paid. Hmm. Thank you. well, I coach established nonprofit consultants who want to grow from 8k revenue months to 80k revenue months while creating space for themselves, their VIPs, who I consider are very important people and pets in our life, and also building wealth for their family community and future generations.
[00:03:30] And my clients find me through my podcast, the biz of nonprofit consultants, which I launched this year in 2024. And also through, the biz chicks podcast, which I hosted for 10 years and I get paid, uh, via my one on one coaching program. I also offer one time 90 minute intensives and I host the impact collective, which is a mastermind program for established nonprofit consultants.
[00:03:56] And it includes one on one coaching. Masterminding, and luxury retreats and a curated community. So good. And I have to say, I mean, I don't know how many episodes we've done at this point, but very few people have that type of, succinct and clear. Explanation of what they do. And immediately it made me think, of your clients and what type of services do they provide?
[00:04:23] Are these folks doing one to many? Are they doing fractional work? Are they doing a combination? Are they doing coaching? like who are these people and what do they do? Well, I'm not a big fan of building businesses on one to many. I've been there, done that. And it is a very, very challenging business model to build.
[00:04:42] And, Again, that's a conversation. so my clients are consultants who are, some are fractional, like fractional fundraisers, fractional operations, people, fractional marketers, fractional HR, and others are, have a subject matter expertise that they are. consulting on, so, some of my clients are evaluators of programs.
[00:05:05] So research and evaluation, others are grant writers and, others. I have public health consultants. So it's really a gamut, but they all have in common that they are. At least the majority or a huge percentage of their clientele are nonprofit consultants. Some of my clients that do strategic planning tend to straddle, some corporate or some like larger business and, nonprofit work.
[00:05:31] most of my clients don't do government consulting. I feel like that's its own other world as well. although they might do the grant writers might be writing state or federal grants. So, yeah, so there's kind of a good mix, but they all have a lot in common. And so that makes the coaching kind of seamless across the board.
[00:05:49] So you mentioned that they're coming to you and you're working with them at a period, they're not just starting out, they're established, they have their businesses running. What are the biggest pain points for consultants who you see at that point in their journey? And how would you even, for someone listening and they're like, Is that me?
[00:06:11] Am I established? How do you, how do I know if I'm established and what am I feeling at that point? So, I have over the last 10 years coached women entrepreneurs, you name the business, I have coached it. And so I've over time niched down to knowing where I serve. The best in the marketplace. And I like there to be a big puzzle and not the starting out puzzle.
[00:06:36] I think that there's other people who coach at the starting out point and love that. And that's not where I shine. I kind of shine where there's Puzzle pieces on the table and we don't know what to do with them. Like we can not put this puzzle together. So I would say. All my clients feel overwhelmed.
[00:06:53] They are overwhelmed. Often they are at capacity in their time and they cannot figure out how to grow next. others are feeling like they're somewhere not quite in the marketplace. So what I find about is interesting about nonprofit consultants compared to other businesses, other types of service providers, is that you can actually build pretty high revenue rather quickly.
[00:07:15] So usually people are coming from. A previous employer, they have a career already. They have this established network, so they can tap into that fairly quickly and get to a six figure business and realize, Oh my gosh, I don't really know what I'm doing here. So I prefer to work with people that have been in business at least a year, preferably more, and that they're at that six figure level, at least, people that are farther along.
[00:07:41] I've seen people build. I think that. Almost anyone can build a business up to 300 K in revenue with themselves and an assistant. I have one client that built 500 K in revenue alone, not really with an assistant with an occasional team member. Now she was working 80 plus hours a week and she has no time to breathe.
[00:08:03] that was not, that's you can see all, you can imagine all the things she needs help with so many things, including when to say no. I think the things that I contribute the most to my clients are usually positioning their business. So specializing by the work they do and niching by who they do it for.
[00:08:20] I also help clients with boundaries with clients and with team. And then I help them hire and outsource at home and in their business and, and then mindset. So if we're raising prices, usually I'm also helping clients raise prices, sometimes doubling or tripling. And there's a lot of mindset work involved in that and bravery really in, putting themselves out there and taking risks.
[00:08:43] And then I also help people fire clients. So if we are up leveling, then we need to fire clients. So it's a lot of fun, but you could hear like, there's so many things to work on. And I enjoy that. I enjoy the variety of all the different issues to work on. And honestly, once we solve one, another one pops up.
[00:09:01] So, I help them prioritize also where we should start. I love all of that, and I think, yes, what you just said feels very true from my experience and the consultants I know. now, what you, I'm gonna pass you a little soapbox to stand on for a minute. Yeah. because I feel like all the thought leaders out there, who are selling like digital business stuff, digital marketing, they're all saying when you're at capacity, you add a one to many model.
[00:09:35] And that is not what you're saying. And I would love for you to dive into that a little bit and tell us why and what we should consider as an alternative. Yes. So, I have been in this online space, really watching it since 2012 and a part of it since 2014. And I watched all the people that are like the biggest names in the business now of all their models.
[00:10:04] And, And also I've had many people come to me as a coach saying, I'm doing something wrong. Can you help me? And I say, it's actually the business model that is not really valid and doesn't work the way people say it's going to work. So one to many involves having a very large audience and what most of the people that teach online marketing and building like selling course, just share your expertise and sell your course, create a group coaching program.
[00:10:33] You have to realize that at any one time, only one to 3 percent of people in your audience will buy from you. And so if you do the math, so say you happen to have a thousand people in your audience, which would be amazing. Most people don't, most people don't have a thousand people in their audience.
[00:10:51] And by that, I really mean you have an email list for those people. Occasionally people can do this with a large audience on Instagram, but it's rare. But especially in the B2B space, so selling to other business owners, which most of the people we're talking to are, right. maybe they're selling to other consultants, but again, that's still another business.
[00:11:10] it's, if you have it, let's say you have a thousand and you're going to sell a hundred dollar course. So 3 percent of, and you guys might have to help me on my math here. Cause I didn't plan my math out. So 3 percent of a thousand is 30. Is that right? So, let's say 30 people are going to buy from you and you're selling something for a hundred dollars.
[00:11:28] That's 3, 000, 3, 000. I have clients that have, can do that with a retainer model, you know, with one client and it's not taking a ton of their time. And so the other thing is that is not shared in the passive income space is that you have to continually grow that audience. All of the people that are currently multimillionaires who did this, they Facebook ads were very cheap.
[00:11:57] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it was really cheap to run Facebook ads and build a large audience quickly. And there was also this time where there was this affiliate model happening and they were really just sharing all the same people and you didn't know it, but behind the scenes, they all were friends and knew each other.
[00:12:12] So it's just really disheartening because what, what upsets me is that people Really amazing entrepreneurs and really amazing consultants have come into this world and thought, Oh, well, these people I trust, they seem trustworthy there, but they are incredible marketers and salespeople. They are, they're amazing.
[00:12:31] I used to watch someone's webinar and I would be like, I have to not have my purse in the room because they're so good at selling. I'm just going to buy whatever they say because they're so good. But they come into this world and they try to do these, they try to follow these steps and they fail and they think that they are doing something wrong as a business owner, but it wasn't them.
[00:12:47] It was the business model. And selling to nonprofits is especially different. Like on top of all of those things, when your audience is smaller or nonprofits generally, like you've board approvals and budgeting processes, it's not someone pulling out their own. Credit card. I mean, sure, I'll buy that.
[00:13:08] So yeah, Jess, what do you want to ask? Well, I was actually thinking it might be fun if the three of us play like a quick game of who's a guru that like, probably our listeners have listened to at one point or another. And let's debunk why that won't work based on our experience working with nonprofit consultants.
[00:13:34] Cindy, I see you like, I love it. Name one. You name one. Okay, well, I feel like one of the biggest is Amy Porterfield. I just think she has been doing this for so long. She is so amazing. Almost, I don't know if the word is prolific that I'm looking for, but she just, she dominates that space and she is a really good marketer.
[00:13:59] So, you know, like it's her digital course Academy, right? Like she's selling you on that. I just feel like. Yeah, she's such a big one for me. Yeah. I mean, it's not even apples to apples. Like she literally spends a million dollars a year on Facebook ads alone, which to your point, Natalie is only to rebuild her email list every single year.
[00:14:24] So if you're like struggling to make six figures and you're comparing yourself you're going to be sorely disappointed. Okay. The one I wanted, Talk about is, Alex Hermosi, who has this huge, free, free, free, free, free, free, free content model, which again, he is doing to grow his email list in the millions.
[00:14:46] So then he can sell you something, To all of our points on every single episode we ever do, nonprofit consultants cannot afford to be just putting out free shit all the time. And you don't need to. You don't need to, and frankly, it doesn't, in my experience, Yield the type of engaged audience that you're actually seeking.
[00:15:10] So I actually sell things all the time. rarely do I give anything out for free these days, other than this podcast. and I have one of the most engaged, but small, it's not big. It's not even 5, 000 people strong list. so that model, his model. It's like something to marvel at, it's certainly impressive, but not something to copy.
[00:15:33] Yeah. All right. You got to name a name, Natalie. You got to name a name. I was going to say Amy. I was going to say Amy. Well, I let me go first. I did. Okay. I will use one. So Marie Forleo, I don't know if you guys are familiar with her. She has a program called B school, which I bought. I bought in 2014 because I was trying to figure this out.
[00:15:51] And, what's interesting, what's been interesting to watch for the last 10 years is. Amy used to be her, one of her biggest affiliates, but now she's basically doing this offering her. Their worlds are merging. I feel like with all of these people, all the new people that come into the world, into this online world and find it because it is like a small town.
[00:16:14] It's literally like, you know, we could go at the soccer field, Cindy, right? We're both soccer moms. We could go and be like, do you know who Amy Porterfield is? They will not know. Do you know who Alex Hermozi is? No, they're not going to know who these people are. They're going to think they're like, no. So, but for us, we keep being served all these same ads.
[00:16:31] And again, there's you see this, it's, it's feels like. This is the only world that exists. but I watched with B school. It was so fascinating because. There would be this huge affiliate launch every year and what people didn't realize that we're buying it didn't understand the affiliate model.
[00:16:53] So they were paying, say, 3, I don't know what it was at the time. Let's say it was 2, I think it was 2000, 2000 for the B School program and the affiliate selling it was getting a thousand dollars. And so then there was this, I think, especially five or six years ago, there was a huge amount of people doing, you would just want to shut down your inbox if you were on these email lists, because you would get all these, you get like one email for you.
[00:17:18] Amy Porterfield, one from Marie. Yeah. And they kept every year, their bonuses that the affiliates would offer were getting bigger and bigger. And Amy started doing events. That Marie would come to, I mean, it was, it's just been really interesting to watch, but what I, the thing that makes me sad and I wish there would be some disclaimer out there is that, I wish that people would, like the new people wouldn't, I feel like in some ways they're getting duped and.
[00:17:48] I don't know if the people selling these things are intending to do that. I sure hope not. I want to believe the best in people. I don't think they are, but I think that they've gotten to such a high place in their business that they don't realize what it's like to start out and what it feels like to not be successful.
[00:18:05] The other thing I, I like to look at our success stories because most often the success stories that people share, those people were going to be successful no matter who they were working with. There are some people that are superstar students and no matter if like they do something with me or with you or with Amy or Marie or whoever, they're going to win because that's just who they are and they are going to do all the things.
[00:18:27] but for the most part, the people we're talking about. Those programs work currently, I think for people that are in a very new niche, that's untapped and usually, working to consumers. So business to consumers, those are, it's I don't know, very, very, very, very niche and untapped. And those people already have an audience.
[00:18:46] So the people that are successful come into these programs already with an audience to tap into. And that's why they're successful. I 100 percent agree and like underscore the two things, which is like B to C. I think you cannot ask an institution to effectively go through these like launch styles that just does not work that way.
[00:19:08] And that they're so, so, so niche, and in the sort of untapped market. So, okay. We have, hopefully, I mean, we could also talk about this idea of make money while you sleep, which is so false. And I think what you like to say, passive income is not so passive. It's not passive. Well, what I say is if it's so passive, why are these people still doing work?
[00:19:30] Yeah, it's not like you're constantly, yeah. Which is why, yeah. No, I like, we could talk about that forever, but I, again, I think that, to your point, it's a lot of work. You said this kind of earlier. It's a lot of point for like maybe 30 sales, right at a few hundred dollars each. So these, the people that are teaching this have email lists that are hundreds of thousands, millions of people.
[00:19:55] Even yeah. Which seems unfathomable, unfathomable, unfathomable. I cannot speak. We know it. Too much coffee. Unfathomable. Yay, Sidney did it. Yeah. So it just seems like that, that's why the math doesn't really math. And that's one of the reasons, like I, we were talking before about how, like teams are a form of passive income.
[00:20:18] Yeah, they can. Let's talk about that. That's how you can build passive income as a nonprofit consultant. Yeah.
[00:20:23]
[00:20:28] All right, Natalie, we are back for another round of our favorite game, rapid fire questions. You ready? I love games. Yes. Yes. Let's do it. Okay. You mentioned that a few years ago, you moved to Eastern Tennessee from Southern California. What's one surprising thing about moving to Tennessee that you maybe weren't prepared for?
[00:20:51] Didn't know. Excited to know now. Yeah. So we moved here to have more land. So we have 13 acres and we have chickens. So it's very fun. And we live in like a forest. it rains here a lot more. I think if we had known how much it rained here, I don't know if we would have moved here, but now we're happy, but it's similar to Portland.
[00:21:09] It's a lot of rain. Yeah. No, not me. Okay. So my next question is when you're not working, how do you like to spend your free time? I am an introvert, so I do a lot of things that are outward facing. So I like to read. I like to walk my dog in the forest off leash. She runs like a wild woman throughout the forest.
[00:21:32] She's crazy. and spend time with my kids. So I also, I have a daughter that's in college. So if she calls me, I answer every time because she might not call me back. She's got a life. and my mom is in California and I have long calls with her. And then my boys. My youngest is always trying to get me to do video games, which I'm not good at, but I will jump on the trampoline with him.
[00:21:53] So that's what I do. I go to soccer games. Lots of soccer games. Okay. And my last question is what was your first job? What was my first job? I, I worked at an international public relations firm in Washington, DC. I graduated from college early, so I was only 20 and I was married to my ex husband and, that was wild.
[00:22:16] And my first job was as basically I was an account assistant, but it was really an admin assistant, but I learned so much. I was supporting to a vice president and a senior vice president. And I sat next to the executive assistant to the CEO. So I just absorbed so much. And Sandra. The executive assistant, she was like a mentor to me and helped me like navigate all the things, including like how clothing is different in the DC area from Southern California.
[00:22:44] And, especially at that time it was very conservative. And so, yeah, that was, I learned a lot. from that job, did you wear, what was the brand Laura Ashley, so much? No, I didn't, but I did wear, I remember, I ran out of like my, I only had two wool suits and we moved there in winter. So, I broke out like a, a spring dress and, my coworker, not Sandra Charlotte says to me, Oh, you got your spring wardrobe out.
[00:23:12] And you know, Jess, we don't have different wardrobes in Southern California. It's one wardrobe.
[00:23:20]
[00:23:25] So I was just going to ask, what's our alternative? What should we be looking at? How do we grow beyond our capacity? if it's not this like online digital course, business. Yeah, it's really a way of like, how else can you leverage your time, right?
[00:23:43] Because that's how we're hoping to do what we're hoping to do with that kind of passive idea, passive income idea. And so if you are wanting to grow, and I always like to say, first of all, there is nothing wrong with being a solo consultant. You can create a very wonderful business as a solo consultant and, maybe outsourcing stuff at home to get more time for work and also like getting someone to do some of the admin, to take some of that off your plate, that, and even that I've watched people build really great businesses.
[00:24:14] You can do that, but if you are wanting to have more impact, and if you are wanting to primarily work in what I, you know, what is known as like your zone of genius, in the book, the big leap, Gay Hendrix talks about the four zones of work we can do, which is zone of incompetence, son of competence, son of excellence.
[00:24:32] And zone of genius. So we really want to be working as much as possible in zone of excellence and zone of genius. That's where it's like the work we're meant to be doing on this planet. And so if your desire is to do that. And, or possibly to build a business you could sell, then we're going to need to have some team and to get you out of all of the client work.
[00:24:52] And so that's really one of the main things that people come to me for, like they are wanting to grow and they don't know how to do it. Or they've hired before and it hasn't gone well. Okay. So let's, I want to stay on this thread, but like through the lens of messaging, if that's okay. So, so you said, I think maybe even before we started that you really love messaging.
[00:25:17] And I'm curious how you communicate. All of what you said you just do for clients in your messaging to then attract your ideal customer to be like, for lack of better words, like buyer ready to then join your programs or work one on one with you. I think that, well, first of all, I like positioning, which part of that is having the correct messaging based on your positioning.
[00:25:47] So I have really worked to position myself in the marketplace in a way that attracts and repels. People. So if you listen to my podcast, if you read my LinkedIn headline, if you listen to what I said at the beginning, if you're a brand new consultant, you might be curious about me and you might start listening to my podcast because maybe you're thinking I could work with you in the future, but you would know that Now is not the right time to work with me.
[00:26:17] So that is part of how I do it. And then I think also I'm very on my podcast. All of the episodes are, I would say for the most part, I would say 80 percent are targeted towards the more established business owner. So I, you will not see anything about how to get started, how to, how to get your first client.
[00:26:39] I talked to someone, I'm talking to that. person who already has clients who is hired or thinking of hiring, who wants to grow, who wants more impact. They're on a growth trajectory. So, the messaging is like knowing those kinds of pillars that my, and you kind of asked me like, how do people know when they're, I talk about overwhelm.
[00:27:00] if you look through my podcast feed, you'll see that A thing that could keep people from moving forward with hiring and a problem they may be having that they may not realize is that they are a generalist. So they can't imagine how could I hand any of this off? What one person could do all these different projects that I'm doing.
[00:27:19] They're all so different. And so in that case, and you could have built a multi six figure consulting practice doing that. But. It will be very challenging to hire another consultant to work with you or a junior consultant to work with you because you first need to, specialize by the work you do and or niche by who you're doing it for.
[00:27:42] Okay, this wasn't my 1st question, but since we're talking about this. then what do you recommend? So if someone is a generalist and they're at capacity and they're ready to make their first hire, whether that's, you know, a duplicate or it's an admin, but they're a generalist and they're like, I can never find a unicorn like me.
[00:28:00] what, what is your recommendation? Yeah, the 1st is just how do we get you as a person more time? So that might be. We're going to look at your, all of your time in your life. And if you're comfortable releasing some things at home, most people are still doing cleaning, doing everything in their house.
[00:28:18] And can we buy back some of your time in the home? Because that brings you up. Now you're not as overwhelmed about home stuff. And also one of the fast things to hire fastest things to hire in your business is Releasing some admin support or finding a micro position. I call it a micro position that you can, outsource a piece like a, a task or a group of tasks to someone else.
[00:28:44] Okay. Let's talk more about this micro. I've never heard that term before. I think I made it up, but sometimes I don't know. All right. Can you elaborate a little bit on do you have one in your business? What does that person do? I don't have one. Well, I guess my podcast editor technically would be a micro position because that's a very specific task that's getting done in my business.
[00:29:06] But one that, I think more people could relate to, that was really the first thing, one of the first things I outsourced was processing zoom calls. So now there's AI and Zapier that can do a lot of, a lot of this, but still probably a human involved. But. Going back, this is probably like 2015 ish, maybe early 2016.
[00:29:27] I was making most of my money doing strategy sessions. So like 45 minutes, 60 minute strategy sessions with my podcast audience. And. I didn't have anyone to send my clients. I would promise them, I will send you, you know, within 24 hours or 48 hours, I will send you the call and whatever else I said I would send them.
[00:29:50] Well, people started getting frustrated. So my clients would be like, Natalie, I really want to re listen to that call. Can you send it to me? And I'd be like, I'm so, and I had a new baby. I'm like, I, you know, I have three kids. They're now. 10, 12, and 22. but at that time I had like little kids, preteen chaos in my house.
[00:30:09] And I would sometimes be up at 10 PM at night trying to get these. Calls processed. It's the last thing I want to do. It is in my zone of competence. Can I do it? Yes. Do it. Can I do it? Well, I can do it. Well, is it a good use of my time? A hundred percent? No, but I couldn't figure out how to hire an assistant.
[00:30:28] And so I got the idea of just. I could just have someone do the zoom part. And so I did that. And I, I knew of a virtual assistant that I trusted. And I was like, could you just do this? I didn't have time to trainer. I didn't have time to create a SOP, a standard operating procedure. So we got on zoom and I'm like, let me show you what I do.
[00:30:48] And then you can create an SOP for this from that. And Then you can take this off my plate. And so, and then she had a couple of ideas how to make it even more efficient. So that was great. And so that bought me back. It bought me back at least five hours a week. I started eventually seeing more she could do.
[00:31:07] So eventually, it felt like I got 10 hours back a week, but I was paying her three to five hours a week because she was so much more efficient. So that's what I consider a micro position. Okay. I have two questions. You get to pick which order you answer them Oh my one is like what level are we hiring those out?
[00:31:26] Like I feel like I again I feel like in our space everyone talks about like just find your VA someone who is generalist and not very expensive. and they'll do the administrative work. So that's kind of like, are you looking for a VA type position? Are you looking for a specialist? Question one, let's just start with that one.
[00:31:46] Start with that. Okay. Well. Here's my theory. When we have very tiny businesses, which is every single person listening to this, you have to hire someone who's an expert at what they do. You do not have time to teach people how to do a job. I once did an episode called do not hire interns on the best chicks podcast, because everyone I work with, they love helping people and they want to hire interns.
[00:32:06] And I'm like, you do not have time to have an intern. And you don't have a time. You don't have time to teach your neighbors. Cousin, how to be a virtual assistant or how to use zoom and how to be an admin. You want someone that is already doing similar work and is great at it. Another thing I think about when we're hiring people or when we have people on our team is that you only want to keep people on your team who you would rank as four to five stars.
[00:32:33] So on a scale of one to five, we've all can, you know, like what restaurant did you, did you like this restaurant? One to five stars. We can all do star ratings and people know this immediately. So I will have my clients report back to me every month. Tell me, rate your team. And I have them rate their clients too.
[00:32:49] So, Once if anyone's three or below, I want to know why and how we're fixing that. So with staying with team, if you have a team member, that's a three, why is that? And why are we keeping them? And is there a way to help them raise up your rating of them? Or if not, then we need to, we need to let them go.
[00:33:09] Okay. I love that. on so many levels, but I want to ask my other question because, otherwise I'll forget about it. So talking about these micro positions, are there, have you seen any trends with nonprofit consultants of like, is there one or two types of positions that have a really big impact on the business or is it really dependent on everyone's individual business?
[00:33:37] Yeah. The other part is project management. So that is something I consider that an actual role, but it also could just be hiring someone as a project. So if you have multiple clients and you ever want to get anyone else involved, we've got to get all this out of your head and into a project management system.
[00:33:55] So I find that people can get quite far in their business with a messy back end. Don't worry. You're Everybody has a messy back end in their business, right, Cindy? Right, Jess? There's stuff we wouldn't want people looking under the hood. So, not Cindy. Cindy is the only person I've ever met that has the purpose.
[00:34:13] On the other hand, to be fair, Cindy, I just overhauled things because I grew my old systems, but now they are actually pretty nice. That's impressive. Okay. That's awesome. well, What I find with most nonprofit consultants, let's say 95. 6 percent I'm making that up, is that they don't have a great filing system for their documents.
[00:34:36] And they also don't have a project management system that they're using to know what tasks are being done and when they're completed in their business. So you can hire a great project manager or ops person to come in. And as a project. Get you set up eventually that will already start to save you time because you're not recreating a proposal every time from scratch.
[00:35:01] You are going to your file folder that has all the different bios that you and your team have ever created are the best ones and you're. Grabbing that you have the, about your business, the, the short one and the long one, and you're just copying and pasting these. You're pulling the, you're almost have a template.
[00:35:19] And then in terms of having a project management software, which I don't consider Trello to be something you could use in your business. So usually my clients are using ClickUp or, Asana. And those seem to be like the most popular. There are others, but those are the most popular. That would be. I would say hiring that as a project that wouldn't be what I would call a micro position is like this ongoing piece that you're outsourcing.
[00:35:43] But thinking of. The way I think about this initially, when someone's in overwhelm, and if they are a generalist, as you were asking, just before we can get them to even have space to think about how, how strategically they could reposition their, themselves in the marketplace. Then, we need to get more time.
[00:36:03] So there's a few different strategies. It's that micro position. It's a, you know, getting things organized operationally. Maybe there's some things we could automate, and then. The other position I feel like everyone needs is admin. So help with scheduling. Usually I find it's hard for people to outsource their inbox.
[00:36:20] Initially, people feel differently. They're like either yes to inbox or yes to calendar. They usually don't feel comfortable doing both at once. but wherever they feel comfortable, I kind of go with where my clients are feeling first. but usually outsourcing scheduling and is, is pretty easy and it involves some client communication.
[00:36:39] So, that seems to be. A good starting point, so I know we have to get to confessions soon, but before we do, as someone who probably sits, right where your ideal customer is in terms of, unorganized, but I'm a piler, not a filer. if you like, my ClickUp has cobwebs on it. I've paid people to set it up.
[00:37:03] And by golly, will I never go there? for example, you just said inbox management tends to be something that is difficult to outsource at the beginning. And I was thinking as you're talking, my goodness, I would love it if I never had to look at my inbox ever again, but the feeling of hiring someone is so overwhelming, like the time it takes, how much, writing the job description again, because I've hired people in the past and they've worked out for four months and then oh, they decide they want to be a nonprofit consultant or something.
[00:37:33] I don't know. do you have any resources or recommendations of like agencies or how does someone like me who is the opposite of a micromanager, like I just want, I would rather pay more to have the expert who's been inbox managing for 30 years that I don't have to train than do all this other bullshit, frankly.
[00:37:58] Like, where do I go? How do I do that? Well, and then we'll have a great slack community, which would be a great place to get a recommendation. Oh, I don't think it is. You're not, you're not going, they're not going to hide, not from them, but I don't know that people do. I think a lot of people there have like very junior.
[00:38:16] Yeah. Okay. But besides you, is there a different resource or recommendation? And it's not everyone's in the slack channel either. This is true. So, which by the way, I love your community. It is really beautiful. So I'm enjoying being in there, in terms of how do you hire this? So what you're saying is my biggest pain point is my inbox.
[00:38:37] So we, and I don't know, I would want to talk to you. is there anything else you would want this person to do? The biggest mistake I see on assistants, just to kind of quickly share. Cause this is one that everyone wants to do. They want someone to be an admin and creative at the same time. I want someone to be an admin and write my social media posts for me.
[00:38:54] No. That is, those are two different people. Your admin will do admin work. They could possibly schedule posts for you somewhere that are already written and the graphics already done, but they are in general, of course, there's a few. You know, what I call unicorns out there that can do all the things, but we don't try to hire unicorns.
[00:39:14] Unicorns usually start their own business. So you actually want someone that loves admin. They love checking things off a list. They love a template. They, for you, what I hear from you, Jess, is you really want someone that will manage you and that will do everything and click up and kind of remind you what to do.
[00:39:33] Does that sound right? yeah. They have to be like very Okay with, no, no. I, so I kind of like, and not feeling bad about it. Yes, yes. 'cause I, so I like to be managed too. I feel like, I feel like I'm somewhere in the middle of you. I may be a little more organized, but nowhere near Cindy. But I have piles.
[00:39:48] if you came in my office, there's piles here, but I know what's in my piles. And don't move my piles, but I like to be managed. I like people. Yeah, exactly. I get you. so where should you go? I do. I really prefer to find, local assistants. So I would want to know more about what, but often if we have a great assistant and they can also run some errands for us.
[00:40:10] Take something totally personal stuff. So finding a local assistant, is what I would look for. And like a Facebook group, like where, I don't know, I would put it on a next door app could be, but you need a job description. Cause you need someone to look at that. And then you want to tell people you're looking for a recommended stranger.
[00:40:32] So you don't want your next door neighbor being like, Oh, Jess, I saw your job post. I'd love to do this. And you're like, Oh crap. What am I going to, what am I going to do now? That's great advice. Yeah. So one of my previous clients from long ago came up with this term recommended stranger. So that's what we're looking for.
[00:40:48] And then, but really if you think about you know, when you're looking at software and you're like, what are, what features. How do I compare these? You really want to think about what's the feature that's most important to you. And so for you, it's inbox management. So you're looking for someone that loves doing that has done it for several people before they know they know how to come in and take that over for you.
[00:41:07] And yeah, for sure. Yeah. And I mean, as someone, I love a good recommendation, but I have a feeling like a lot of us on the call and those listening, like a lot of my friends are not business owners. In fact, none of them are. A lot of them are stay at home parents, which is totally fine, but I can't go to my normal people.
[00:41:27] I asked for restaurant recommendations and babysitters, like indeed LinkedIn are places where you can go. And, you know, I'm happy to give you some, some other ideas. Thanks. Okay, cool off the clock here. Thank you so much. Okay, let's go into our last and final, you know, it's coming confessions question.
[00:41:45] Natalie, give it to a straight. Yes. So, since we're talking about hiring, my confession is that every time I have hired, I get scared to hire, and I have mindset issues around hiring and I usually wait too long. I don't recommend this. I don't recommend waiting too long, but if you have, it's okay. You can still hire, but I have to work through my own mindset because when you hire someone, you are becoming responsible for paying what you say you're going to pay them.
[00:42:16] And so there's this pressure that comes on. I've had a team of up to seven in the past. I've had, there were four of us that were full time three with six figure or higher.salaries, it's a lot, it's a lot of pressure and, I have a much smaller team now, but I, I think that just, I, I just, I have a lot of compassion for people that are hiring because there is a lot to work through.
[00:42:44] And especially if you've hired in the past and it didn't work out, you've got to deal with all of that too. So, so yeah, I get scared every time.
[00:42:52] Thank you so much for sharing that. But, yeah, I think it's very. We all have our own mindset issues, whatever point we're on in the business. And it is a huge responsibility, especially those full time six figure salaries. So, thank you, Natalie. Thanks for joining us. you mentioned it off the bat, but tell us again, where can our listeners connect with you?
[00:43:16] Well, since we're already listening to a podcast, I think the easiest thing is to go wherever and whatever podcast app you're in search for the biz of nonprofit consultants and follow subscribe. And, and then I'm on LinkedIn. I think that's a really great place to connect with me. I let you're welcome to DM me.
[00:43:32] I, I post there regularly and I love having conversations on LinkedIn. And then my website is biz chicks. com. com it's B I Z C H I X. com. Appreciate you. Thanks for being here. Thanks, ladies.