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Episode 255 - How to Work Less, Make More, and Build a Scalable Service Based Business
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In this episode of The Brands that Book Show, Davey sits down with Joe Sanok, author of Thursdays Are the New Friday and host of the Practice of the Practice podcast. Joe shares insights from his journey leaving a secure career in higher education to build a thriving counseling business, podcast, and consulting practice.
As always, links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check 'em out over at https://daveyandkrista.com/work-less-make-more-build-scalable-business-btb-255/. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts.
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Transcript
Introduction & Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
We really want you to build it so it can scale. you don't have to build the multimillion dollar version, but like what's the good solid just base that you can create so that you can say, okay, I have a good website. I have good marketing.
00:00:11
Speaker
I chose to be on insurance intentionally versus just like default. And then as we talk through kind of their experience, then deciding how much do we want to double down? So where are we reinvesting in the business? Where are we looking at hiring an executive assistant, maybe hiring other clinicians?
00:00:27
Speaker
where are things working and where are things not working? And then evaluating those things to say, let's put more money and time into those. You're listening to the Brands That Book Show, a podcast for creative entrepreneurs who want practical tips and strategies to build engaging brands and craft high converting websites. We're your hosts, Davey and Krista, co-founders of a brand and website design agency specializing in visual brand design and show it websites.
00:00:53
Speaker
You're listening to the Brands That Book Show.
Benefits of Reduced Work Hours
00:00:56
Speaker
If you want to work less while growing your business, this is the episode for you. And that might sound too good to be true, but there's actually good scientific evidence to suggest that when we have less time to work, we're actually more productive.
00:01:10
Speaker
But it's not just about being more productive and making more money. We also want to be happy in the work that we're doing. So we want to learn how to align our time with what we value.
Interview with Joe Sanok on Time & Values
00:01:21
Speaker
Today's interview is with the expert on this subject, Joe Sanok. He is the author of Thursday's The New Friday, How to Work Fewer Hours, Make More Money, and Spend Time Doing What You Want.
00:01:31
Speaker
And he's also the host of the Practice of the Practice podcast, which is recognized as one of the top 50 podcasts worldwide with over 100,000 downloads each month. We're chatting all about how to align your time with what you value, mistakes that people make when growing their business, what things you should actually focus on as you grow your business that actually move the needle.
00:01:53
Speaker
And Joe even shares his 3P process for launching a new product. As always, links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check them out at DaveyandKrista.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts.
00:02:06
Speaker
It really helps. And now, on to the episode. Today's episode is sponsored by Badao, formerly Sumo, the very best intelligent form and pop-up tool for your website.
00:02:19
Speaker
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00:02:35
Speaker
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00:02:50
Speaker
You can check out how that feature works over at the Davy and Krista website. Also use the code Davy and Krista to save 20% on your subscription.
Joe's Career Journey from Mental Health to Entrepreneurship
00:03:00
Speaker
Create an experience on your website using Badao.
00:03:04
Speaker
All right, Joe, welcome to the Brands That Book podcast. Really grateful that you're here. Loved our conversation that we had on your podcast while back and excited to continue the conversation. Yeah, Davey, so excited to be here.
00:03:14
Speaker
Yeah, awesome. Well, everybody's heard a little bit of an intro, but could you tell us a little bit about your backstory and building your private counseling business, what that looked like? Yeah. So I had a really kind of typical story, went to undergrad and grad school and then worked in nonprofits and community mental health and had a job at community college as a community counselor. It honestly was like the golden handcuffs. I mean, I had a pension, I had the highest salary that local therapists would get.
00:03:40
Speaker
It was the job that everybody wanted. I think when I got the job, there was like a hundred applicants for it. And so I felt so lucky, like I'm going to be here. Both my parents worked in the school system. So it was like, okay, this is going to be the job the rest of my life.
00:03:52
Speaker
And I had this kind of side gig counseling practice to just pay off student loan debt. And I was seeing people ah two nights a week, so like Mondays and Wednesdays. And then over time, started adding in other counselors that were just 1099s. They got a percentage.
00:04:07
Speaker
They'd fill in the other days from when I was renting. And things just kept building within that. And i remember this one moment. where I had upgraded my office. We then had like five staff. So I had this four office view of the the bay in Traverse City. we have this beautiful kind of like Lake Michigan view.
00:04:24
Speaker
And I leave on my lunch hour from the community college and i go do a counseling session and my beautiful corner office view of the water. And then afterwards I go back to the community college and I'm walking down these steps to my basement office with no window.
00:04:38
Speaker
And I'm like, what am I doing? I'm making more money now off of these ten ninety nine s than i am at this community college. And also concurrently, I had started a podcast called Practice with the Practice talking about the business of counseling. and was getting more consulting clients, getting, you know, we had a small membership community at the time.
00:04:55
Speaker
it was like these things where I kind of had to decide, like, I can't keep working like
The Risks and Rewards of Entrepreneurship
00:05:00
Speaker
50 hours a week. Like i had little kids and busy life. And at that point I had to really think like, what do I want to do?
00:05:06
Speaker
And the central question for me really was, which would I regret more? Like trying something and really just failing and then having to go back to work or not trying at all and never knowing if I had it in me. And over and over it came up that I'd rather try and just see. And so, yeah, over 10 years ago, then just left that community college job.
00:05:25
Speaker
Yeah. Tell me a little bit more about taking off the gold in the handcuffs. I coach a local high school team here. One of the things that I've been talking about with my guys, you know, just trying to get them to think about what's possible for them in their future. You know, and I think when I was growing up, entrepreneurship wasn't even on the radar. You know, I was just, you know, I go to school, think I'd go to college, then I get a nine to five.
00:05:45
Speaker
And that felt quote unquote safe. Yeah. You know but one of the things that, you know, I was explaining to these, these high school players recently is like, there's to me just as much, much risk staying in the nine to five as starting your, your own business.
00:05:57
Speaker
Maybe talk about what decisions went into leaving the nine to five to start your own thing. Yeah, I think that it was helpful to have a little bit of traction already in that side gig where things were going well. i was, you know, making close to what I was making in the full time job. So it wasn't like, hey, I've got this $5,000 a year side gig. I'm going to leave my, you know, i was probably making 60 grand a year.
00:06:19
Speaker
leave my 60 grand a year in health, good healthcare for, it it was probably, you know, making 50 to 60 grand a year as my side gig. So I'm a very practical guy. Both my daughters had open heart surgery. i have diabetes and a history of cancer.
00:06:32
Speaker
So it was a huge decision to say, I'm leaving this secure kind of healthcare care system and salary. So for me, it was really running the numbers. Like for me to just replace the salary, how many counseling clients do I need? If right now I just kept that many consulting clients. So My consulting at that time was about twice what my counseling was.
00:06:52
Speaker
I think my counseling was probably 150 an hour. And I think my consulting at that time was like 300 an hour. So when I broke it down, I think it was like 14 clients to really replace it and to have a similar lifestyle. And I realized, okay, that's doable.
00:07:04
Speaker
You know right now, I think at that time, I think I had seven or eight clients that I was maintaining and then had the consulting. So it was like three or four more clients and to have 40 hours a week extra to put into getting new clients. Like, what could I do with that?
00:07:17
Speaker
So I think that really it was the practical numbers for me. And then also it was when my second child was born, I took the full family medical leave act. So, you know here in the States at the time of this recording, parents can take the family medical leave act and you know Over six months, I worked about 20 hours a week at the community college so I could just pay for the healthcare and tested out that whole kind of side gig.
00:07:38
Speaker
The first month I did that, it was the best month financially our family had had. The next month was better. The next month was better. By the end of that, I sat down with my boss, who I still have a great relationship with. I'm in improv with her husband and said, you know hey, Lisa, I'm happy to come back, but I need to get have my full-time salary, but I'll only work 20 hours a week. And she just laughed. And I'm like, I had to at least give you an offer, like but like I can come back part-time and get the full salary. I thought, you know, might as well try.
00:08:02
Speaker
And she just laughed and said, you know, no that's not going to work. um So gave a month notice. And after that, it just, the extra time going into the practice and especially into the podcast and the consulting just made it just blow up.
00:08:14
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. And is that typically what you recommend to people who are trying to start their own practice? Maybe starting out more with what you have on the side and building it up to replace maybe a full-time salary and then taking it full-time?
00:08:27
Speaker
Yeah, it really depends on the person's situation. So there's people that they have a husband or wife who has a full-time secure salary, and they can just jump into private practice. There's other people that they're like, I know that I don't want to work in community mental health. I have a little bit of savings.
00:08:43
Speaker
umm going to try that. And for someone that's the primary income earner, it's usually good to have some sort of part-time or full-time job that's just secure, whether that's giving you... healthcare care in some way or you know just kind of taking a bite out of the the stress.
00:08:57
Speaker
What I don't want people to do is to be so backed into a corner financially that they make dumb decisions, that they take the wrong clients, that they charge too less, that they look desperate, that they make a crappy website. And then in a year, they have to undo all this trash that they created instead of saying, let's do it right the first time.
00:09:13
Speaker
you know Within our community, we walk people through you know how to do that. It's one of those things that we we really want you to build it so it can scale. You don't have to build the multimillion dollar version, but like what's the good, solid just base that you can create so that you can say, OK, I have a good website. I have good marketing.
00:09:30
Speaker
I chose to be on insurance intentionally versus just like default. And then as we talk through kind of their experience, then deciding how much do we want to double down? So where are we reinvesting in the business? Where are we looking at hiring an executive assistant, maybe hiring other clinicians?
00:09:46
Speaker
where are things working and where are things not working? And then evaluating those things to say, let's put more money and time into those. Yeah. Circling back on what was something that you were saying, having extra time to then to invest in the business.
Managing Time in Entrepreneurship
00:09:58
Speaker
Of course, you're the author of Thursday's the New Friday. And that's something I want to talk about a little bit because you have now all of this time. And I think anybody who's moved into entrepreneurship from a nine to five realizes that all of a sudden they think they're moving into something that's going to provide so much more flexibility.
00:10:14
Speaker
But you can also handcuff yourself to a certain extent and end up working 60 or 80 hour hour So as you grew your business, like what did that look like navigating all of this extra time and not necessarily having sort of the confines of a nine to five?
00:10:29
Speaker
Yeah, I think at the beginning is really wonky. I mean, I remember going to the YMCA on like a Wednesday at 10 a.m. and it's all these old retired dudes and me and I'm thinking these guys probably think I'm either like homeless or I'm like just like don't have a job, I'm unemployed. i like And it's like none of them cared. you know I'm just some young guy at the YMCA.
00:10:50
Speaker
So to have all this like self-talk of I'm supposed to be at work, you know it sort of felt like skipping school initially. Like I should be at work. Then led me into kind of a next phase of saying like, what structure do I intentionally want? Like what's healthiest for me? So this has shifted over the years, but right now it's like I have 10 and 13 year old girls.
00:11:10
Speaker
They're both at such sweet ages. you know, there's a little bit of the rumblings of the teenage years, but not quite the full on, like, I hate you dad yet. And I'm like, I want to enjoy this time. So if I just start with, okay, how do I want to be an intentional parent? Well, we live a block and a half from the school. My sister lives in the neighborhood and I have nieces also.
00:11:28
Speaker
Literally every day i walk my daughter to the elementary school with my nieces and my sister. It's like so Americana. That school starts at 9 a.m. So my very first meeting is 930 every day.
00:11:39
Speaker
I want to walk down and pick her up from school during this time too. So she gets out around four o'clock. so my last meeting's at 3.30. So I work aggressively Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday from 9.30 to 3.30.
00:11:50
Speaker
And I want to be present as a father. I'm also a single dad with primary custody. So I have them 80% of the time. So to me, it's really important they have that stability at home. So when I'm done, I'm not checking my email. I'm not sending slacks. I'm not brainstorming podcasts, all these things.
00:12:04
Speaker
When I'm with them, I really try to be with them. And so I think that it's like that then defines what I'll do and what I won't do. And, you know, I wrote a book about not working on Fridays. So I'm never going to take a consulting client that says, Hey, like, will you work on Friday? It's like, no, that's a hard boundary. Now I have soft boundaries. Like on a Friday, if one of my team members is like, dude, we have to meet about this. Like before Monday, it's like insane.
00:12:28
Speaker
This is last minute. I'm sorry. It's an emergency. I know you're usually off. Like, I'm not going to say no to that. And so starting to define what kind of boundaries we have then helped me shift into just pattern.
00:12:38
Speaker
And so we went from kind of chaos into pattern where I then can say, okay, I want to work on our membership community. i'm going to put that on repeat every Wednesday morning from 930 to 11, block that out.
00:12:50
Speaker
No podcast, no consulting, nothing else. So now I can start to have some predictability And when we have predictability, our brains rest differently. They absorb things differently. They're more creative. We're not spending that energy on things that just don't matter.
00:13:03
Speaker
and We can put it into the actual products that we're building. Yeah. I think some people probably thinking, oh I don't know. I don't know if I could go down from 40 weeks to whatever that looks like working four days a week, whether that's 30, 32, whatever.
00:13:15
Speaker
What would you say to those people that feel like, oh, no, I couldn't go down. I couldn't work with less time. then don't. I mean, like it's your life. Like, who cares? Like, are you happy? Would be my question. Like, do you like how your schedule is? And if you're like, I love it.
00:13:29
Speaker
I might challenge some of that and say, like, have you overvalued work? Like, is too much of your ego being fluffed up because of your products or you're such a hustler?
Work-Life Balance & Creativity
00:13:38
Speaker
Like whatever, like, is it more ego driven than actually like happiness driven?
00:13:42
Speaker
And then I would encourage people to do do some experiments. So to just think through, like, what's something that you could add to your life That just is for fun. For me, five years ago, that was improv. It's like, I'm going to try this. And freaking love it. You know, I go do intensives in Chicago and we have a whole troop and it's just, I laugh so hard every Tuesday night that I like don't have to do an ab workout.
00:14:04
Speaker
You know, for a while I did curling. i was like, that's a weird sport that always looked funny when they're like doing the broom. And I'm like, I want to try that. And so I tried that for a couple of years. So when you start to have things that give you socialization, give you creativity, give you exercise, sometimes as you test these things out, you realize, OK, like what I thought I was loving, which was work.
00:14:27
Speaker
was fulfilling a need there, a need of socialization, a need of achievement, a need of productivity, a need of providing for my family. And maybe there's other ways that that need can be met that I don't want to put necessarily a judgment on it, that it's more healthy, but then maybe it's more aligned with with what is actually going to make you happier.
00:14:46
Speaker
Yeah. I asked the question for a few reasons. First, I think that when I moved from a nine to five, so i was a high school teacher and I moved into entrepreneurship. Now I had total control over my time. Also going to the gym, you know, middle of the day and almost feeling bad about it.
00:14:59
Speaker
You know, like, oh, you know, I shouldn't be here. I should be at my desk working.
Efficiency: Time Constraints and Productivity
00:15:03
Speaker
So I love that idea of figuring out what's important to you and then aligning your time with that. And the second reason I ask is because one thing I noticed a couple of years ago was that whenever I was getting ready to go on vacation,
00:15:15
Speaker
I all of a sudden was really productive. Like that time leading up to vacation, super productive. And I started thinking about why that was. And over time, what I noticed was that when I had less time, I was a little bit more productive.
00:15:29
Speaker
That I think radically shifted how I think about my work week and how I think about how i think about how much time I need to get a given task done. And I bet there's some psychology there, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's actually Parkinson's law. So Parkinson's law says that work expands to the time given. So you think about back in college, you remember you have a paper due the next day and you're like, oh crap.
00:15:50
Speaker
And you stay till 3am. It's not your best work. You complete it. Maybe you get a C minus, but you compare that to all the time you put in when you realized a month ahead of time and you went to the writing center and you overthought it and you redid it. And maybe you got a B, maybe got an a But neither is better or worse, but work typically expands to the time that's given.
00:16:08
Speaker
I even think about with my daughters, I'll set a timer for 30 minutes. We'll play fun music and I'll say, we are blitzing the house to clean it up as fast as we can 30 minutes. And those girls and I run through the house trying to get as much done as possible. We probably do two hours worth of work in like half an hour.
00:16:24
Speaker
And so what you're talking about is that when we're focused on a particular task, if we give ourselves limited amounts of time, our brain drops into flow state more. There's a research study from the University of Illinois on vigilance decrement. So vigilance, meaning how well we pay attention to something, decrement meaning going down over time. So originally before the study, the main thought was it was like a glass of water, that your vigilance, the amount you could pay attention to something, just was like water being poured out. When it's out, it's like, go eat, go to sleep, tomorrow we'll come back to it.
00:16:54
Speaker
They actually found they did this study where they had four digit random numbers they gave college students. And for an hour, these students had to sit at a computer. And whenever their four digit number came up, they had to click a button. So so say it was three, two, one, nine.
00:17:06
Speaker
So all these other numbers come up. It's super boring. And then they hit the number when it comes up for an hour. They experienced vigilance decrement. So the amount that they clicked at the beginning for their number was higher at the beginning than at the end.
00:17:18
Speaker
The second group, what they did is at the 20 minute mark, they gave them a one minute break. You know, hey go sit in the lobby for a minute or like do jumping jacks, whatever you want. No screen time, no TVs, no magazines, just like one minute break.
00:17:30
Speaker
Came back, did it for another 20 minutes, one minute break, another 20 minutes. So same exact study, boring numbers, two one minute breaks. There was zero vigilance decrement at the end. The amount they paid attention at the end of an hour was as good as when they started.
00:17:44
Speaker
So why is that? So our brains, we know from evolution, first and foremost, are protecting us from the tiger that's in in the bushes, from like the scary barbarian that's going to come kill us.
00:17:55
Speaker
So when we go into a new situation or we disrupt something that's already safe, it makes our brains think that it's unsafe. So it pays attention better. So even if after this podcast, it's like, you know what, I've got something else right afterwards. I'm going to just go down the stairs, step outside, take a deep breath of air, come back in.
00:18:12
Speaker
That disruption will do more for my brain than any cup of coffee is going to do. And so what you're experiencing before vacation is that loss of vigilance decrement of being able to drop into flow state, focus in, you've got all sorts of things that need to happen.
00:18:26
Speaker
The last part about Parkinson's law that isn't usually reported is the idea of the natural bloating of organizations. And so he looked at the British Navy and he found that every single time that something new was added to the system, it was near impossible to pull it out.
00:18:42
Speaker
So imagine there's a pink form and they say, well, now we need the red form also same form, but you got to fill out both. couple years go by, Davey, you're new here. You got to fill out the pink form and in the red form. And now we also have the blue form.
00:18:54
Speaker
No one asks why there's this natural bloating that happens near impossible to change that. One of the best things you can do in an organization to change that is to they give people less time to do things. Because if next week I said to you, Davey, usually you work five days. I want you to work four days. You're naturally going to say, what is the single best use of my time?
00:19:12
Speaker
I have 20 tasks to do this week. You're not going to do the worst five. You're going to do the best five. The ones that make you money, the ones that are the guests on your show that are the best, the ones that help, you know, expand your reach. And then the five things that you don't do, you're probably going to start to outsource. You're probably going to start to say, i should just eliminate this.
00:19:28
Speaker
And so this natural thing that you're seeing before vacation is actually like well supported in the science. Yeah, that's awesome. The one thing that stuck out to me, and there's so much gold there, but is the one minute break.
00:19:41
Speaker
I mean, to me, that's that's astounding, right? Like just a minute break and all of a sudden you're more productive during that 20 minutes. Something my wife will feel ah validated in. She's heavily encouraged me to cut down my caffeine intake. So now she has even more more reason.
00:19:56
Speaker
My doctor actually told me I had to because I had salmonella in Mexico and then for two years had several emergency surgeries and they're just like, you need to cut down your intake. And so I switched to matcha latte in the morning.
00:20:08
Speaker
And so what I do, and this isn't any magic formulas, I have a smoothie when I first am up, walk my kid to school so I get to wake up from the cold air of Michigan. and then come home, have my matcha, drink that for an hour and a half or so.
00:20:21
Speaker
Kind of gives me that warm beginning of like lower caffeine. And then my first like coffee is usually just like a latte. So right now I'm drinking my first one like of the day and it's almost noon. And so that's just helped a lot for me.
00:20:36
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Okay. That's good to know. I might be able to recreate the cold air in Michigan and like a cold bath or something like that. There you go. ah Start every day that way.
Aligning Values with Business Growth
00:20:44
Speaker
Well, as we talk about time, so we talked about like aligning your time with the things that you value, but then there's the business reality, right? And figuring out what is most important.
00:20:52
Speaker
You've had so many different consulting clients as you go through your consulting or think through your consulting practice. What are some of the things that typically come up? Like, are there things that you typically recommend to people to focus on that really move the needle in their business?
00:21:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think that when we're looking at different phases of private practice, the majority of people I work with are counselors, therapists, coaches, people like that. There's the things that make you the money and there's the things that give you joy. And those don't always have to be exactly aligned.
00:21:23
Speaker
So for a lot of therapists, doing therapy is a lot of fun. They enjoy it. Hopefully you have a therapist that is in that work because they want to be in it. And they may want to write a book, do a TED talk, do a course, do something bigger.
00:21:36
Speaker
So what we recommend and what we've seen work is to really look at like, where's the low hanging fruit? Like the thing that you don't have to explain. Luckily now in our world, I don't really have to explain what counseling is. Like people know what counseling is. Mental health is usually valued.
00:21:49
Speaker
And so it's pretty easy to help a new client with that. Now say like I had a consulting client who helps people with kind of like money issues and money mindset and undoing their childhood, but it was like outside of the scope of counseling.
00:22:01
Speaker
And so they had this like, I forgot exactly what it was, but it was like money mindset coaching or something like that. Right away, the question that you and I would have is like, what does that even mean? And so, so let's start with the stuff like, okay, I help couples in counseling deal with money.
00:22:15
Speaker
Let's get that going. And then if we want to do something bigger, let's build that audience before we put all this time and money into creating courses and then test it out. And we have a whole system that we do with the three P process, test it out before you put too much time and money into
Evolving Business Strategies & Audience Engagement
00:22:29
Speaker
it.
00:22:29
Speaker
And then you can launch those bigger things. So that idea of kind of building on what's working and then building the team around that to keep it going and keeping those plates spinning outside of yourself, and then moving into maybe the things that are more creative or more of a gamble or a risk.
00:22:44
Speaker
That's where we see consulting clients really rock it out. Yeah. And I bet if you are a counselor and you're helping couples deal with money, the more you do that one-on-one, my guess is that you just dial your message in over and over and over again so that when you do bring it to scale, it resonates with so many more people.
00:22:59
Speaker
What about, what does that process look like in starting to build your audience? Where do people start there? Yeah, it's really interesting as you look at kind of what some of the top people say of how people decide to like who to follow and what to do.
00:23:11
Speaker
It's really shifted from a funnel model. So, you know, in the past it was like get someone's email, send them an email sequence, do a tripwire, have them buy something low cost for $9, kind of sell them into something else.
00:23:23
Speaker
Some of that works still, but I would say now it's more of a choose your own adventure where, you know, if someone's on TikTok, they see a video and then they go do something else. And then, you know, they're listening to some podcasts and then they find you again.
00:23:37
Speaker
And then they follow you now on TikTok. And then they're like, oh, maybe I want to look at your book. It's a lot more decentralized than it used to be. And so I think that as we look at building an audience, we want to just look at what where do you enjoy things? Just yesterday, I was talking to a consulting client and he's growing some things both inside his counseling business, but also beyond.
00:23:57
Speaker
And I said to him, cause he really hates social media. I said, figure out what platform you do like, like don't post anything on any of them. Just go on them for fun and see if you like anything. And as I, when I said that, he said, Oh God, I love YouTube. but He's like, YouTube is like, there's so many things that I just see on there that are these short short videos, especially the educational ones. i'm like,
00:24:17
Speaker
Pull out your phone, put it on cinematic mode and like start recording just like questions people ask you in therapy. Like, hey, today in therapy, this guy asked me this, like obviously no identifying client information, but they said, you know, how can I have a better relationship with my adult parents and also set boundaries?
00:24:31
Speaker
Just answer that. You know you're thinking about this all day long and like people would love that stuff. So then it's like, okay, you have joy. You enjoy that social media platform. You're going to then start to get that message out in a way that you're just refining it over time. Then you're going to see what resonates with people.
00:24:47
Speaker
So you'll have three to five videos that maybe have a hundred views instead of 12 views. They maybe have a thousand views instead of five. And then it's like, okay, there's something here. I'm testing it out. That then can become things that you kind of workshop around on podcasts or in other areas. So we do want to have a way that people come into something that you can follow up on. That can be a text opt-in, that can be an email opt-in, some way to stay connected to them.
00:25:10
Speaker
So you can do you know a text course where someone opts in for, like we have a 40 days to full texting course where you know someone texts us and then you know they get a daily, like here's how you can fill up your counseling practice. Or we have like our email sequence depending on different phases of practice.
00:25:24
Speaker
So then you want to have something that is like a course. Nobody wants to be on an email list. No one wants to get a newsletter. They want a course. So if Davey had, you know the brands like rocking your brand out course, you know, in four weeks, go from like a shitty brand to an amazing brand.
00:25:42
Speaker
Like, okay. Like that's the course. And you get an email every day or every week. People will opt into that sort of thing. Then we can move into the three P process of testing out products. Once we have an audience.
00:25:53
Speaker
Just a quick overview, what does that 3P process stand for? Yeah. So what you're going to want to do is you want to have probably at least 500 people in some way following you because you want to have a big enough data collection.
The 3P Process for Product Launches
00:26:06
Speaker
And when we're talking about following, is that is email really the the key there? I would say email, text. I mean, you could say social media, like really the the process is meant to say, should I launch this product or not? Like that's the central question of it. And you're trying to make sure that you don't spend a bunch of time and money on something that no one's going to buy. So,
00:26:25
Speaker
At the end, it'll give you the information as to what you should do next. So first you're to send out some sort of communication that could be how email text, whatever. Hey, I'm doing 20 minute interviews with people from my audience about what product I should build next.
00:26:39
Speaker
This is not a sales call. It's literally me just understanding where you're at and kind of talking through some different things. Would you be up for a 20 minute call? So your goal is to get at least 20 people on a Zoom call or on a telephone call.
00:26:53
Speaker
You're going to be typing away the whole time and probably use some sort of AI note taker as well. So you don't need to worry about the video and the eye contact. so I would say if you do Zoom, just use the Zoom AI to do the note taking and don't worry about as much of like the face to face. So the first P is the pain.
00:27:09
Speaker
So Davey, like with your business, like what's one pain that that you're dealing with, would you say? Yeah, I would say continue figure out ways to scale. Yeah. Okay. So then I would ask a bunch of questions like, what does scaling look like? When you say that it's a pain, like, is that keeping you up at night?
00:27:25
Speaker
Does the scaling mean I want to have a thousand more listeners on the podcast? Does that mean I need more customers? Like digging into whatever Davey's pain is. Then I'm going to reflect back like a good therapist. Davey, what I heard you say was all these things. So I'm reflecting back what you said. Is that right? Yep.
00:27:38
Speaker
And sometimes people then are like, oh, but I would also add this. So we really want to get a good feeling of the pain. So keeping that pain in mind, Davey, like what would be a product that would be helpful? Would it be an email course? Would it be a ah live course? Would it be an in-person retreat? Would it be an intensive where I fly out to you?
00:27:55
Speaker
Just letting that person dream as to what the product would be. So first pain, then product. So I was doing this with a bunch of my highest end clients a number of years ago. And i was planning to start, I bought podcastlaunchschool.com.
00:28:08
Speaker
I was planning to start an e-course that was just going to teach people how to start a podcast. I interviewed 20 of my highest end clients that I knew were kind of in that space. They were talking about the pain of, I just don't know the technology. I don't even know what mic to buy. i don't know what to do after I record. i don't know how to find guests.
00:28:24
Speaker
The second question was like, what would the product be? They overwhelmingly said, we just wish that you had a done for you podcast launch where, I don't know, 20 or so episodes.
00:28:35
Speaker
You're already doing this. You have your whole team do this. Like, like, why don't you just do it for me? So these are people that, you know they understood the value of their time and they described a product that was not in my mind. So then that tells me that.
00:28:46
Speaker
Next, the P is price. Okay, you want this done for you thing for podcasting? Like, what would you pay for that? They said $20,000. I was about to try to sell them a $500 e-course.
00:28:59
Speaker
And then I always ask, this was something I didn't ask at that time. If I doubled that price, what would have to be involved to make it a no brainer? And so 40 grand, they may say, I'd have to have like 20 consulting sessions with you too, or I'd have to be get access to your email or whatever. So then you find out what they really value.
00:29:15
Speaker
So by the end of that day, i had had four people put down 50%. So $10,000, I had 40 grand in one day for a product that at the beginning of the day i did not have.
00:29:26
Speaker
And then had those four done for you people and made another 40 grand like three months later when we launched the podcast. So, but what we're looking at is if nobody signs up to even talk to you, you have a disengaged audience.
00:29:38
Speaker
If the pains that people describe are something you don't want to deal with, you've misaligned yourself with your most active members. If people describe a product that's way beyond what you're offering, you've been dreaming too small. If it's if they say, know, here's the product I would want, it's super tiny.
00:29:55
Speaker
You have a really like an audience that doesn't understand what they actually need. And then if the price is misaligned, say they're like, Hey, I'd pay 20 bucks a month for that, for that done for you podcasting. are you insane? Like, there's no way I could do that for 20 bucks a month.
00:30:08
Speaker
You have a cheapskate audience or you, in my case with that, i had an audience way more money and way bigger dreams that I even realized. And so it doesn't matter what happens because you then end up having a process that gave you so much information on what your audience wants to buy before you've ever launched anything.
Balancing Intuition and Data in Business Decisions
00:30:24
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, one of entrepreneurs biggest gifts is intuition, you know, but I think that so often we think we know exactly what it is that our audience wants. So we go and we build the course first and then the course doesn't do as well as we we thought. Now we've put all this time and energy into the course.
00:30:41
Speaker
when we could have just started with conversations, which often cost us nothing, just a little bit of time. And that's amazing what you were able to discover just by asking. And it's crazy what we can find out just by asking people.
00:30:51
Speaker
And I think it's sometimes scary for people to ask because you might find out those things. Like maybe you have a disengaged audience or maybe you are misaligned with your audience on some level, but we should start thinking about those things as gifts. It's certainly a gift to find that out in the conversation versus finding it out after you spent a hundred hours building a course that
Resources & Closing Remarks
00:31:10
Speaker
doesn't sell.
00:31:10
Speaker
So I love, I mean, I love that process as people want to learn more about this process and, you know, maybe some of the things that you offer over at the practice of the practice, where can they go to follow along and maybe find some resources?
00:31:21
Speaker
Yeah. I would say first and foremost, the podcast practice, the practice, we have over a 1200 episodes. We are, our guy, Josh, who's doing the scheduling is getting some insane people. Like the lady that swam from Cuba to Florida is going to be on the show. He's finding these like mega athletes that Just to talk about performance, we're talking a lot about AI and other small business types of things there. So I would say practice of the practice heading over there. If you're a therapist or coach, practiceofthepractice.com slash membership is where we have our membership for every phase of private practice, whether you're just getting going or have a mega group practice.
00:31:56
Speaker
Those are really reasonably priced. And it's an amazing community of people where we have 12 live sessions a month. We have small groups. We have over 30 e-courses they get full access to just for a low monthly price.
00:32:08
Speaker
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time, Joe. Really appreciate it. And looking forward to sharing this episode. um Thanks so much, Davey. Thanks for tuning in to the Brands of Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing, leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, and sharing this episode with others.
00:32:25
Speaker
For show notes and other resources, head on over to Daveyandkrista.com.