“It is just as important, if not more important to work on your business than just doing that outward facing client work, to have the space and ability to build, reevaluate and think and dream.” - Jess Campbell

In today’s episode, we talked about why working ON your business is just as important in working IN your business. 

Highlights:

1. Jess and Cindy’s systems working on their business

2. Determining the appropriate framework for working on your business

3. Knowing the nice to haves vs. critical part of your business

4. Making decisions, planning and executing goals 

5. Avoiding mental burnout while working in and on your business.

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

Connect with Cindy:

Cindy Wagman Coaching https://cindywagman.com/

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

Connect with Jess: 

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

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Cindy: Welcome to the Confessions podcast. I'm Cindy Wagman.

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

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

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

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

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

[00:01:11] Cindy: Listen in as these leaders share their insights, their numbers, and the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to building a nonprofit, coaching or consulting business. We're 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, Jess.

[00:01:33] Jess: Hi, Cindy.

[00:01:35] Cindy: I don't know about you, but the last little while has been really busy, and I feel like I've been working in my business a lot more than I've been working on my business. And so, yeah, let's talk about that today.

[00:01:50] Jess: It's such an easy trap to fall into, and I think both of us that work with clients in the fundraising space, specifically---

[00:02:00] Cindy: This is a year end...

[00:02:01] Jess: Really busy time of year, so it's easy to get caught up in it. But maybe not even just fundraising. If you're a strategist and you're making plans or you're working with boards, I just think this is a busy time of year, so it's really easy to get caught up into that.

[00:02:15] Cindy: Everyone seems busy right now. For me, and I think for most people, the time when we have the best business ideas and the most generative thing is when we have some downtime. But it can be really hard, especially if you don't build that in, then your business growth and potential will suffer.

[00:02:37] Cindy: And we can also talk about the ups and downs of revenue. If you aren't doing business development on a consistent basis, you're going to have those peaks and values. So, yeah, we thought, let's dive into this conversation and maybe share some of our tips on how we make sure that we're working on the business a little bit consistently all the time. So let's start with what is working on your business looks like for you?

[00:03:07] Jess: So while it might externally look like and even our friend DeaRonda Harrison was like, "You were such a great executor. You think of an idea and you put it to work." And I do. And sometimes they need to put a stop to that. I'm not a super duper great multitasker. And so what's difficult for me is when I have client work, but I'm also trying to work on my business or in my business.

[00:03:34] Jess: And so for me, it's better to go in stages for a sprint. And I'm coming out. This is my last of nine VIP weeks. Crack the shoe.

[00:03:50] Cindy: You did it! You did it!

[00:03:51] Jess: I did it. And I really learned a lot about how I love to work with clients. I'll definitely do this again. This is another accident. I have kind of needed to come to this stop place to then move forward. I think I have scheduled for the next six or eight weeks to do almost no client work so that I can do the clean up that needs to happen, the reconciliation of books that needs to happen.

[00:04:17] Jess: I am almost incapable of doing those two things at the same time. So I have like six or eight week sprints flip flop all year long. And that's what's worked for me.

[00:04:30] Cindy: Yeah, I love it.

[00:04:32] Jess: How about you?

[00:04:32] Cindy: I'm the opposite in that. I...

[00:0439] Jess: The same is different.

[00:04:43] Cindy :So I do like working in sprints, but for me, I actually book a day a week to not have any meetings and to work on the business. I also book one day a week where I don't work. So I try not to work Fridays at all. But then Wednesdays are usually my day where I don't book meetings and I can really just get the work done, but I'm changing it for January or end of January. I'm shifting to not taking meetings during the morning because and you probably Jess just knows this about me and anyone who's known me for any period of time knows I'm a morning person, I do my best work then, and then I just do meetings in the afternoon.

[00:05:28] Cindy: So I'm actually shifting it because I feel like that will give me the time and space, the most productivity to actually get the work done. I probably still won't book a lot of meetings on Wednesday afternoons. I don't typically, but I'm giving myself every morning like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday to actually work on. I have a lot of things I want to work on. Yeah.

[00:05:55] Cindy: In the new year. And so that's the time I booked for it. And I have to block it off like two months in advance because...

[00:06:01] Jess: Totally.

[00:06:04] Cindy: Otherwise it's booked.

[00:06:04] Jess: Totally. And I think that what you mentioned about the calls, I find them so draining. If I could invent a business where I literally don't have to do any calls, I would be a happy gal. And I realized that there's so much efficiency that can come out of them, I'm aware. I just personally find them so draining and such a shift in productivity. And so I used to be very loosey-goosey with my calendar.

[00:06:38] Jess: No boundaries. You can book a call whenever.

No. And I am putting some real card sales up for the next phase because it's too much. I will literally have to go lay down in a dark room if I do like three Zoom calls in a day. I don't have it anymore. It's one thing to like, say I'm in a book Wednesday afternoons for calls, but I have to realize that I will literally be worthless after that. So I have to be careful with that too. It's better for me to do calls.

[00:07:23] Cindy: See, I don't mind calls. A, I have discovery calls, which I only do Monday and Tuesday afternoons and that's it. But I also do a lot of coaching calls. And this is again one of those areas where you and I are kind of on the opposite sides of things. I really like doing the coaching work and so it's finding and podcasting is a form of calls too.

[00:07:46] Cindy: So we'll batch like four podcasts. I was looking at our schedule. You and I are scheduled for four back to back podcast sessions one day in a couple of weeks. And I was like, "That's a lot," but it's the same energy. And then that night I will crash, but it's done.

[00:08:04] Cindy: And it's sort of batched together and we can talk about batching. I know we both do this. So for me, I look at more like what the week looks like. And for you, I feel like you're more like what does a couple of months look like in terms of those sprints? But I think that that's so critical to being able to manage and find the time to work on the business and not just do client work.

[00:08:29] Jess: Yeah, I know. For me, right now, I'm in that messy middle phase of where I just need a lot of cleaning up, everything from funnels and sequences to my website, which to me right now is so cringey and just like all sorts of stuff that I just want to re-hold. A whole bunch of stuff that's been just set aside and I know is creating stop gaps in my business. It's also, I want to do a better job of in 2023, having people like self-select which path they go to work with me and really filtering out people that are not the right fit.

[00:09:11] Jess: Because right now, anyone can submit some sort of form or contact information. And not necessarily that they get on a call with me because I essentially don't do calls. But if I want to be a little bit more clear about what it is required to work with me and I just have none of those filters up right now, and I just feel like that's hurting my business or it's making my business way less efficient and there's room for improvement. But it takes me to basically only be focused on that to be able to do it. Yeah.

[00:09:49] Cindy: So, fun fact, I have a lot of the same objectives of cleaning up and streamlining all our services and products. So same...

[00:10:01] Jess: I would say we should co work, but the Zoom thing will just not work for me.

[00:10:06] Cindy: We'll die. But you're going to love this. The story brand people have is like a framework, I think they're being seen to revisit all of my web pages and my nurture sequences and all that kind of stuff.

[00:10:19] Cindy: So, yeah, I have a lot of big projects for the new year, but that's definitely part of it. But then, as you were talking, the other thing is like what are the nice to have and what are the critical things? Because to me, that is more like we're not suffering because I don't have that. And I would definitely rather be on a discovery call than, no, I think it's more productive to be on a discovery call than to fix my website.

[00:10:50] Jess: Totally.

[00:10:51] Cindy: But as I say that, I'm not sure because maybe I'll have more productive discovery calls if my website is more streamlined and I'm preparing people or screening people better. So I don't know. I don't have a good answer. But I definitely...

[00:11:04] Jess: Well, it depends. It depends what stage of your business is because you're not hurting for business right now. And so if you were in a position where you needed to fill your client roster, a discovery call is going to be way more beneficial than probably fixing things on your website, right? And so I think it depends what you're trying to achieve for the upcoming quarter or the upcoming year and what are some of your goals for that.

[00:11:32] Jess: So, for example, in 2022, at the top of the year, and this is really funny because we just had a conversation on visibility. Visibility was my number one goal.

I wanted to double my email list, which required me to do the things that I've been doing, but then also attach to other people's audiences. And what I found was attaching to people's audiences was a lot of work and way less fruitful than me just doing my own thing.

[00:12:02] Jess: And so my email list has definitely grown, but not from a lot of that effort and work and frankly, money that we put into that. And so we reevaluated. And so some of the changes we made versus like, pitching podcasts and pitching speaking opportunities was I went from sending one weekly email to my newsletter list to two and showing up more in people's inboxes with really high quality value. And it just totally transformed my lifeblood of my business, which is my email list. And I think those are changes you have to make as things happen.

[00:12:44] Cindy: And I think that's such an awesome, great example of the shoulds where sometimes we feel like we should be doing this, we should be focusing on that because that's what everyone else does or what have you, but you got really clear on how you're serving and who you're serving and what consistency looks like for you. And we're all in via severe emails.

[00:13:08] Cindy: So I literally said to myself this morning, I was in a meeting with my VA and I was like, "All right, right now it's November 14," when we're recording this. And I was feeling like, "Oh, my God, I can see all the things I want to do next year and I have to start them all now." I was like, "No, I don't." No, I do not.

[00:13:32] Cindy: I will burn myself out. And that is not why I do what I do. And so I literally picked two goals, two things I want to get done before the end of January, not even the end of December, and everything else is going to wait. And I'd rather finish those two things properly then try to do all five things half the best.

[00:13:56] Jess: I agree. I'm an activator. So it's my poor Mackenzie, talk about her all the time, but basically a thought enters my head and I'm already running with it. I mean, I need an emergency break to stop. And I, too, after the season, I've had him feeling tired. And I cannot walk into 2023 like this tired if I'm like, "Hey, you want to have a business?"

[00:14:24] Jess: And McKenzie is so good. And so for anyone listening that's kind of like me, where you get so excited and you want to move forward and activation and execution, you do those things really well. Having someone to kind of say, "Okay, yeah, great, I'm hearing you," but not actually start implementing. McKenzie's so good at listening to my ideas, but not necessarily starting. And then I usually come back and that idea I had, we're going to push that.

[00:14:57] Jess: And she's like yes. But having someone to kind of check you or even Mackenzie has had to say to me, like, this is too much and we're not going to be able to do any of this well. And so if you don't have that kind of self control, having someone I know, like Ria and Brooke, who are some people in our community, they're each other's accountability partners every Monday. And I know that they would call each other out if someone was to say they were doing this, that and the other. And they're like, "Whoa, Nellie." Yeah.

[00:15:32] Jess: So whatever you need to do to put those guardrails up, I think is really, really important.

[00:15:42] Cindy: Yeah. One of the things I found in working with the VA on my team is that sometimes I'm fine running myself to the ground, but I'm so much more aware of her workload. And so I'm like, "Okay, checking in." If she has too much, then I know I need to pull back and stop adding things because I don't ever want someone else to work as hard on my business as I work. That's not why I created the business and that's not why I hired people. But also to me, that's sort of like a good threshold test. It's like, "Is there too much going on?" But I've done a lot of work over the last year around what I want out of my business.

[00:16:27] Cindy: And obviously I want impact, I want to impact people, but I want to enjoy things. And so I don't want to wake up on a Saturday morning and do work, which I'm infamous for. So I have to remind myself that pretty much every day and that allows me to make decisions from the place of what I'm trying to build, not just in my business, but in my life.

[00:16:52] Jess: Okay, so at the time of recording, we have like six weeks left, right? And it's really busy. But I'm curious, what your thought process is in terms of goal planning and how you make decisions based on executing those goals, and what's the split of executing those goals as far as working in your business versus on your business?

[00:17:17] Cindy: So based on what I've structured for the New year, I feel like I will be 40% of my time working on the business and 60% of the time working with clients. But I actually think it's going to probably be more like 50-50. And so part of what I look at is like how many clients do I want to be serving and what does that look like?

[00:17:40] Cindy: I'm in a place now where I'm scaling, so I don't have very many opportunities to work one on one with me and I'm working on those and they're going to be fairly expensive for people or really quick and intense like VIP day type things, which is still expensive.

[00:17:58] Cindy: So yeah, I feel like looking at what I want in the business, how do I want to serve people and how much time and what are those products. And then what I've had to do is say, "Okay, what do I need to do to build that?" I'm not starting from scratch with any of them. But I do know that I have to put in some new systems for the fundraising plan service that I want to do or for my one on one coaching, I have to update the proposal that I have because I've changed how I deliver that.

[00:18:30] Cindy: And so I need to back that time in and I need to block it on my calendar so that I actually get it done. So I really do look at, I mean, for me, the biggest, biggest thing for me in the new year is this network of consultants that I guess oversee, manage, have, and that's going to major overhaul. And so, I anticipate that that will take me months to relaunch. So I'm not launching my group cohort and my group coaching program again, until probably the fall. I've given myself a lot of time to build because I see the scale, I see the impact, I see how it helps charities and it helps consultants. And I'm like, "That is something that's big. And I have to create the time and space where I won't do it well, and then I will not be as successful.

[00:19:27] Jess: Yes, I think that carving out that space to build is really important. And if you can afford to do that while not running alongside it, you're just giving yourself such a gift. I know a coach that I work with, she spent the better part of 2022, at least the first six months, redoing her entire offer suite. And to compensate for that, she ran like this huge Black Friday sale she did the end of year, like January 1 type of release of things just so she had the cash, so she could literally sit and build.

[00:20:08] Jess: And now it's done and it's awesome. But I can't imagine how stressful that would have been if she was also worried about income at the same time.

[00:20:20] Cindy: I think that's such an important point and I want to talk a little bit more about that because I do think a lot of people feel like I can't find the time because I am so busy with client work and a couple of things. One is like hour based pricing is a problem if you want to grow your business. Stop charging people by the hour, charge them for your expertise and buy the project or retain what have you so that you can find efficiency and actually build margins into your work or increase your hourly fee. Kind of both. That is such a big one. I see people struggle with is they don't have the time because they are literally trading their time for dollars. And that is not you will never be able to buy back that time because you need the money.

[00:21:11] Cindy: Another thing I see is just being available to everyone all the time. And we talked about that already, but I really push people to say don't work in your email, have an auto responder on. There's some great examples out there, people in our sector who have amazing auto responders.

[00:21:28] Jess: I've literally had an auto responder on.

[00:21:32] Cindy: Yeah, you know what, it's okay. People will be a lot more patient with you if you manage their expectations from the start. So put on your autoresponder and then block. Don't let them book anytime. Block your calendar and say, "Okay, whatever this time of Tuesday afternoons is the time when I'm going to do discovery calls. Or we used to do it like when I was doing a lot more work in the business. "Okay, Mondays work for this client. Tuesday is work for this client." Just so I could get in the head space.

[00:22:04] Cindy: So you have everyone, our listeners have the tools to get out of that dollar for our mindset, but you have to implement them. And it's scary, but it's so worth it.

[00:21:22] Jess: Can we just say for everyone listening and I don't know when this episode will actually drop, but whether it's late in the year or it's early 2023, if you haven't increased your prices, we just commit to increasing your prices. That will just right there, afford you time to breathe and build and get some stuff done.

[00:22:44] Cindy: Yes. Love it. Increase your prices if you can go to value based pricing, and that is your first step to being able to grow your profitability. I love it.

[00:22:56] Jess: And what about for folks who don't want to grow?

[00:23:03] Cindy: Oh, I love that one. I have a lot of people like that. Okay, so still raise your prices.

[00:23:07] Jess: I'm one of those people. I am less interested in going up.

[00:23:14] Cindy: So, still increase your prices. I have one of my coaching clients. She was, I think, charging, $40 an hour, and I was like, "You need to be charging 60 or 65." She was like, "Huh?" I was like, "Trust me." And actually, her client offered that. They were like, we're paying you too little.

[00:23:40] Cindy: So that was a wake up call for her. And she, for lots of reasons, doesn't want to be working full time, and that just gave her so much more margin in her life. So, yeah, I think that you know this about me. I love when we can start to productize our services.

[00:23:54] Cindy: And you do this so well, Jess. You are actually like with your sprints and the way that you deliver what you do, you found a way so that you don't have to be doing all the growth. You can find that you maybe grow a conference, but that doesn't mean you're doing five conferences. So scaling what you have, I think, is that's what I'm focused on right now as well. Not launching more, not doing more, but serving more people on what we're doing.

[00:24:29] Jess: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. For me, it's about going a little bit deeper than it is wider. And as someone who has accidentally spent 2022, what feels like in a launch every other day, because I've accidentally started a second business, not in the planning session we did in January, I got to really pull the reins back, because that has been exhausting. It's also made me an excellent launcher, and so I actually feel like I have something to teach around that.

[00:25:10] Jess: But, yeah, I've said this a couple of times in a few different episodes. I'm just in the messy middle. And if you know my personality, I'm a PILER, not a filer. So it gets really messy before we get organized. And I'm in that phase, which is why I'm so excited that I have worked my buns off these last two quarters, because I'm actually sitting on so much cash that I do not have to work for a client to earn a penny for the next several months if I don't want to. And that's so nice because so much has been neglected to give it a revisit.

[00:25:53] Cindy: Yeah. And I think I don't want to call that a cautionary tale because you're obviously structured your business in a way that you can make your charging premium prices for those intense times so that you have the downtime. The problem is a lot of people don't and then they have downtime and it's like crisis because they can't, they don't have cash flow.

[00:26:13] Cindy: So I think I was also just having this conversation with a coaching client. Anyways, two clients asked for a couple of months off and she financially was okay with it. So she's like, "I said don't replace them. You need that time and space." And I think if we don't build white space or the margins into our day to day and into our business planning, we burn out. We suffer, our business suffers.

[00:26:45] Cindy: And so wherever you can find those margins pricing wise, time wise, how you structure your offerings, I actually think that that is so critical to the longevity of our work.

[00:27:00] Jess: I will also say there has never been a week in my business as intense. I don't care if I'm running like the Brazilian Together Summit for 1500 people, that you will not find me post on social, that you will not get an email from me in my inbox. I am always doing at least something and you're so, so good. I think you always say...

[00:27:22] Cindy: Come hell or high water.

[00:27:35] Jess: Yeah, well, you are consistent. And so I think going back to working on your business versus in your business, there's always a little bit of working in my business and it's like a stove. I turn it up and I turn it down depending on what is going on. But I am never not doing anything because I've been there.

[00:27:48] Jess: I write emails about this where it has burned me bad and it's not worth that kind of level of stress to be unsure of like calling in business or falling off the face of the visibility earth and no one remembers you and all that stuff.

[00:28:04] Cindy: Yeah. And it's got to a point where because of the consistency, launch is so much easier because people are ready. I send out an email, I'm like, "Hey, I have room for some coaching clients and people book calls." So when I do like those emails, I actually batch them.

[00:28:23] Cindy: I usually sit down for a couple of hours once a month and get them all written and then done. And so the process still works. You don't have to... One time, a couple of years ago. I was like, "Let's do a day or like half a day session with my team at the time." We're going to just brainstorm all the topic ideas because I used to blog back then.

[00:28:50] Cindy: And then we're going to come up with 30 blog posts in this session, and we're just going to record ourselves and transcribe it, and then we're going to have it all done. It half works, but just because you do things consistently doesn't mean it has to be a little bit every day. You can manage your time so it's more effective.

[00:29:11] Jess: And I'm thinking you must not have an ounce of ADD in you or ADHD because for me, sometimes when I put on my calendar, like write sales sequence or whatever, I fail so miserably or block the time to redo the sales page or whatever, I don't know.

[00:29:33] Jess: But what does work for me is any time like it happened last night as I was going to bed. I got the spark of inspiration on the LinkedIn post, and so I just wrote it up...

[00:29:46] Cindy: Do it again first.

[00:29:49] Jess: Like literally vomited into a note on my phone that I'll go and clean up later. But I also think it's okay that when inspiration strikes, to pull out your phone, to voicemail yourself, do whatever you need to do to just capture that.

[00:30:05] Jess: I know for all those women listeners, I did a session with this amazing teacher named Audrey who talked about how your creativity actually spikes as you are coming into your ovulation phase. So, the first 14, 15, 16 days of your cycle, and then it drops significantly as you go towards your menstrual cycle. And I haven't been excellent about timing those things up, but I just know when I have the inspiration strike and I check the calendar, I'm like, ""AHA! Okay, I really better lean into this if I can," versus trying to do it all, really force myself when it's not flowing.

[00:30:50] Cindy: No, trust me, I am not always productive, and I'm not always like, "Great, I scheduled time for this, I'm going to do that." I try, and I'm better at it than I used to be, but sometimes I ask them like, "No, I don't want to break," or, that's not what inspires me right now. And so I'll do something else. And that's also okay. I'll just make sure I move it so that I walk off another time for it.

[00:31:17] Jess: I think the takeaway from this episode is it is just as important, if not more important to work in your business, in your business, on your business than just doing that outward facing client work, to have the space and ability to build and reevaluate and think and dream. So important.

[00:31:42] Cindy: Yeah. All right, see more next week.

[00:31:49] 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.

[00:32:00] Jess: Number one, post a screenshot of this episode to your Instagram stories or LinkedIn profile and tag Cindy and we can really post you.

[00:32:08] Cindy: Number two, share this podcast with a fellow nonprofit coach or consultant.

[00:32:13] Jess: And number three, leave a positive review on Apple podcasts so we can continue to grow and reach new listeners.

[00:32:20] Cindy: And of course, make sure you subscribe so you can get the latest and greatest interviews as they drop every Thursday.

[00:32:26] Jess: And to our fellow nonprofit coaching and consulting friends, remember, like an open book and here to answer your burning biz questions.

[00:32:33] Cindy: See you next time!